CUPID/EROS/AMOR

Cupid’s stone is Opal which can be used in love & beauty magicks, and can be worn to bring out inner beauty.

Also, rutilated quartz is a clear-rock crystal containing thin threads of gold or titanium, or such other penetrating materials as asbestos or 
actinolite inside it.

This type of crystal is known to the French as “fleches d’amour” or “love’s arrows”; they are also called Venus’s hair stone, Thetis’s hair stone, 
pencils of Venus, Cupid’s arrows, Cupids net, or the Goddess’s tresses.

CUPID, known as Amor, the Roman God of Love, was developed from the god Eros, and depicted as a winged youth.  His attributes include arrows, bow, 
and torch.

According to tradition, he awoke the Goddess, Psyche, with a kiss.  The popular epithet, Cupid, was only applied by poets.

Eros is one of the lesser immortal gods of Olympus, beside the Big 12…LOL.  Hesiod referred to Eros as the “Fairest of the deathless gods.”

In the earliest stories, he is most often a beautiful, serious youth that gives good gifts to men.

Plato said, “Love – Eros – makes his home in men’s hearts, but not in every heart, for where there is hardness, he departs.  His greatest glory 
is that he cannot do wrong, nor allow it; force never comes near him.  For all men serve him of their own free will.  And he whom Love touches 
not walks in darkness.”

The Roman God Amor and Eros are counterparts, or Amor is Roman Italian for Eros.; Cupid is Latin.  In some stories, Cupid is the son of Aphrodite, 
and the war god, Ares, in Greek myth.  Strange that the Greek Goddess of fiery love, sexual attraction, passion, fertility, and growth, among 
other things, would mate with the Greek, Ares, God of war, blood, chaos, and such, and produce a God such as Cupid.  While Cupido, in Roman, does 
mean “desire” it is a desire for a love and a lover, perhaps a mate, not just sex.  He tends to lean toward the funner side of love and sex and 
also the thrill of love at first site, hence, Cupid hits us with his arrow when we fall in love at first site.

In early myths, Eros is not the son of Aphrodite, but her occasional companion.  In the later poets, he was her son, and almost an invariably a 
mischievous, naughty boy, or worse.

“Evil is his heart, but honey-sweet his tongue,

No truth in him, the rogue.  He is cruel in his play.

Small are his hands, but yet his arrows fly as far as death.

Tiny, his shaft, but it carries heaven high.

Touch not his treacherous gifts, they are dipped in fire.”

The above verse, in my opinion, could indeed depict the offspring of a union between Aphrodite and Ares.

He was often represented as blindfolded, because love is often blind.  In attendance upon him was Anteros, said sometimes to be the avenger of 
slighted love, sometimes the one who opposes love; also, Himeros or Longing, and Hymen or the God of the Wedding Feast. 

Eros is primordial Greco-Roman deity and one of the children of Aether & Hermera in the pre-Homeric cosmos.  Eros is listed in Hesiod’s Theogony 
as one of the three archetypal beings with Chaos & Gaia.

In Greek, the word “eros” means love of the sexual kind, also Eros was a lover of Aphrodite and they both seem to be similar in their types of 
love.  In Roman, Amor means “love,” & “Cupido” means “desire.”

In Hellenistic times, as love became increasingly romanticized in art and literature, the alternative conception of Eros as a child or baby with 
wings & a quiver full of arrows gained ground.

Indeed, the God was frequently plural as Erotes (or Latin: Cupidines), because the number of passions he represented seemed manifold.  There arose 
the conceit that some of his arrows were tipped with gold to create passionate desire in his victims, and other with lead to turn people away from 
those who fell in love with them: thus, Eros could both provoke love, and frustrate it.

This childlike Eros is familiar in the works of the Roman poets, and Virgil tells how Venus used him to make Dido fall in love with Aeneas.

CUPID (taken from http://www.theholidayspot.com/valentine/cupid.htm)

Cupid is the most famous of Valentine symbols and everybody knows that boy armed with bow and arrows, and piercing hearts. He is known as a 
mischievous, winged child armed with bow and arrows. The arrows signify desires and emotions of love, and Cupid aims those arrows at Gods and 
Humans, causing them to fall deeply in love. Cupid has always played a role in the celebrations of love and lovers. In ancient Greece he was 
known as Eros, the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. To the Roman's he was Cupid, and his mother was Venus. 

There is a very interesting story about Cupid and His mortal Bride Psyche in Roman mythology. Venus was jealous of the beauty of Psyche, and 
ordered Cupid to punish the mortal. But instead, Cupid fell deeply in love with her. He took her as his wife, but as a mortal, she was forbidden 
to look at him. 

Psyche was happy until her sisters persuaded her to look at Cupid.  As soon as Psyche looked at Cupid, Cupid punished her by leaving her. Their 
lovely castle and gardens vanished too. Psyche found herself alone in an open field with no signs of other beings or Cupid. As she wandered 
trying to find her love, she came upon the temple of Venus. Wishing to destroy her, the goddess of love gave Psyche a series of tasks, each 
harder and more dangerous then the last. 

For her last task Psyche was given a little box and told to take it to the underworld. She was told to get some of the beauty of Proserpine, the 
wife of Pluto, and put it in the box. During her trip, she was given tips on avoiding the dangers of the realm of the dead. She was also warned 
not to open the box. But Temptation overcame Psyche and she opened the box. But instead of finding beauty, she found deadly slumber. 

Cupid found her lifeless on the ground. He gathered the deadly sleep from her body and put it back in the box. Cupid forgave her, as did Venus. 
The gods, moved by Psyche's love for Cupid, made her a goddess. 

Today, Cupid and his arrows have become the most popular of love signs, and love is most frequently depicted by two hearts pierced by an arrow…
Cupid's arrow.

CUPID  (from: http://www.holidays.net/amore/cupid.html)

The Most Famous of Valentine Symbols 

Cupid has always played a role in the celebrations of love and lovers. He is known as a mischievous, winged child, whose arrows who would pierce 
the hearts of his victims causing them to fall deeply in love. In ancient Greece he was known as Eros the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of 
love and beauty. To the Roman's he was Cupid, and his mother Venus.

Sources: 

Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem, & Metal Magic.

Crystal Enchantments by DJ Conway.

Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

Who’s Who in Classical Mythology by Grand & Hazel.

Encyclopedia of Gods by Michael Jordon.

Various Internet sources.

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