Cupid and Psyche
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40 free Cupid and Psyche trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cupid and Psyche is the great love story of Roman mythology: a mortal princess so beautiful that a goddess turns on her, a husband she is forbidden to see, and one moment of doubt that costs her everything. This quiz follows the tale from the oracle and the mountain crag to the hidden palace, the impossible tasks and the journey to the underworld, then on to the wedding among the gods. Later questions cover where the story comes from and the sculptures, paintings, poems, novels and fairy tales it has inspired. It suits mythology fans, classics students revising the tale, and anyone who met the story through a retelling and wants to see how much of the original they remember.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Roman goddess grows jealous when people worship the mortal princess Psyche instead of her?
Venus
Venus orders her son Cupid to make Psyche love something hideous, but he falls for the princess himself and disobeys.
Q 02What spills from Psyche's lamp onto the sleeping Cupid, waking him and sending him fleeing?
Hot oil
Hot oil from the lamp burns Cupid, who flies off and leaves Psyche on a riverbank. He then lies ill in his mother's house while she searches for him.
Q 03Which tiny creatures sort a huge heap of mixed grains and beans for Psyche before nightfall?
Ants
Ants take pity on Psyche and bring a whole fleet of insects to finish the sorting while her tormentor is away at a wedding feast.
Q 04Which fairy tale is often traced back to the myth of Cupid and Psyche?
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast is a version of Cupid and Psyche, Bruno Bettelheim argued in his book The Uses of Enchantment.
Q 05What is the one rule Psyche's mysterious husband sets when he visits her each night in darkness?
Never look at him
Never look at him: he always leaves before sunrise, so Psyche knows her husband only by voice and touch until her sisters stir up doubt.
Q 06Psyche carries honeyed barley cakes into the underworld to distract which monstrous guardian?
Cerberus
Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of the dead, is bought off with the cakes Psyche carries in both hands.
Q 07When Psyche opens the box from the underworld hoping for beauty, what does she find inside instead?
A deathlike sleep
A deathlike sleep pours out and leaves Psyche motionless until Cupid, healed at last, wipes it from her face and shuts it back in the box.
Q 08The name Psyche, also the root of the word psychology, is the Greek word for what?
Soul
Soul is the meaning, which is why the tale has so often been read as an allegory of the human spirit reaching for divine love.
Q 09Cupid, the husband of Psyche, is the Roman counterpart of which Greek god of love?
Eros
Eros is the Greek name, so the story is also told as Eros and Psyche; the heroine keeps her Greek name even in the Roman version.
Q 10Artists often give Psyche the wings of which creature, though the ancient tale never mentions any?
A butterfly
A butterfly became Psyche's emblem in ancient art, and engraved gems found in Britain show Cupid torching one as an image of spiritual torment.
Q 11Psyche's father, worried that no suitor will marry her, consults the oracle of which god?
Apollo
Apollo's oracle gives a chilling reply: expect no human son-in-law, but a fierce creature feared even by Jupiter.
Q 12What do Psyche's envious sisters convince her that her unseen husband really is?
A huge serpent
A huge serpent that will devour her and her unborn child is the sisters' story, spun from the oracle's warning of a dreadful bridegroom.
Q 13Besides a lamp, what does Psyche hide in the bedroom to kill the monster she expects to see?
A sharp blade
A sharp blade and a lamp are the sisters' plan, but the light reveals the most beautiful creature Psyche has ever seen.
Q 21Psyche's final task sends her to the underworld to ask which queen for a box of beauty?
Proserpina
Proserpina grants the request; the errand is set on the excuse that nursing a sick son has faded the sender's own looks.
Q 22What unlikely object speaks to Psyche and explains how to enter the underworld and return alive?
A tower
A tower she climbs, meaning to throw herself off, suddenly speaks and sends her to Taenarus in Greece, where the way down begins.
Q 23What does Psyche carry in her mouth into the underworld to give Charon the ferryman?
Two coins
Two coins, one for each crossing with the ferryman, mean that unlike the dead Psyche can make a return trip.
Q 14Startled by her first sight of Cupid, Psyche accidentally wounds herself on which object of his?
An arrow
An arrow from his cast-aside quiver pricks her, and she is seized by a feverish passion for the husband she had meant to kill.
Q 15Which wind god lifts Psyche from the rocky crag and sets her down gently in a meadow?
Zephyrus
Zephyrus, the west wind, serves Cupid; he later carries Psyche's sisters down from the same crag to visit her in the hidden palace.
Q 16What happens when each of Psyche's sisters leaps from the crag, trusting the wind?
They fall to their deaths
They fall to their deaths because the wind that once carried them does nothing: each had hoped to replace Psyche as Cupid's bride.
Q 17At which goddess's temple does Psyche tidy up scattered grain offerings and farm tools?
Ceres
Ceres appears and admits Psyche deserves help, but will not act against a fellow goddess; a temple of Juno turns her away the same way.
Q 18Psyche's third task is to fill a crystal vessel with black water from which underworld river?
The Styx
The Styx pours from a cliff where dragons slither among the rocks, and the sight alone is enough to make Psyche despair.
Q 19Which bird swoops in to fetch the black water Psyche needs for her third task?
An eagle
An eagle, Jupiter's own bird, comes to her aid out of regard for Cupid, weaving between the dragons to fill the vessel.
Q 20Which weakness makes Psyche open the forbidden box on her way back from the underworld?
Curiosity
Curiosity is the flaw Psyche shares with Lucius, hero of the novel around her tale, whose itch to dabble in magic gets him turned into an animal.
Q 24What does the king of the gods give Psyche to make her immortal before her wedding to Cupid?
Ambrosia
Ambrosia turns Psyche into a goddess, so the pair can marry as equals at a banquet attended by all the gods.
Q 25Voluptas, the daughter born to Cupid and Psyche, has a Latin name with which meaning?
Pleasure
Pleasure is what Voluptas means; Psyche is already carrying the child when her sisters talk her into lighting the lamp.
Q 26Which riverside plant speaks to Psyche, telling her how to gather wool from a flock of violent sheep?
A reed
A reed, the kind used to make musical instruments, stops Psyche from drowning herself and tells her to pick the wool off the briers.
Q 27Which god finds the abandoned Psyche beside a river just after Cupid flies away from her?
Pan
Pan, god of the wilderness, sees the signs of passion on her; she honours his divinity, then begins wandering the earth for her lost love.
Q 28How is Psyche dressed when a procession leads her to the mountain crag to meet her fated husband?
In funeral clothes
In funeral clothes, because her family treats the wedding as her death: marriage and burial merge into a single rite as she is left on the peak.
Q 29Which writer, once accused of winning a rich widow by magic, set down the tale of Cupid and Psyche?
Apuleius
Apuleius defended himself in court against the magic charge and published the speech; his is the only full telling of the tale to survive from antiquity.
Q 30Cupid and Psyche is told inside which ancient novel, the only Roman one in Latin to survive whole?
The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass gives the tale about a fifth of its length, placing it at the midpoint of the adventures of its hero Lucius.