The god of love

The Greeks referred to Eros as a primordial being because love and desire have existed since the moment of creation. Even desire, passion, love and romance were depicted as winged children of Eros. The singular Eros, however, remained distinct in myth. It was he who lit the flame of love in the hearts of the gods and men, armed with either a bow and arrows or a flaming torch.

Eros was often portrayed as the disobedient but fiercely loyal child of Aphrodite. His arms, full of arrows, which he carried in a golden quiver, no one could touch with impunity. His arrows are different powers: some are golden and kindle love in the heart they wound; others are blunt and heavy with lead and produce aversion to a lover. 

He is depicted as bearing golden wings and his eyes are sometimes covered as if acting blindly. Most considered Eros to be the youngest of the gods.

Cupid’s Bow

He was a youthful god, the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Eros was portrayed as playful and sometimes dangerous. Armed with a bow and a quiver of magical arrows, he possessed the power to make mortals and gods alike fall madly in love or turn cold and indifferent. His golden arrows inspired passion and affection, while his leaden ones sow disinterest and aversion. Eros was thus both a bringer of joy and a trickster capable of inciting chaos in the hearts of gods and mortals.

After the Olympian Apollo mocked Eros’s skill with the bow, the young god of love struck him with a golden arrow, filling him with overpowering desire for the nymph Daphne. To punish Apollo’s arrogance, Eros also shot Daphne with a leaden arrow, which inspired aversion instead of affection. The result was tragic: Apollo pursued her endlessly, consumed by passion, while Daphne fled in terror and begged her father, the river god Peneus, for escape. He transformed her into a laurel tree just as Apollo reached her.

Some versions of the underworld myth claim that Eros, at Aphrodite’s urging, shot Hades with one of his golden arrows. Struck by sudden desire, Hades allegedly abducted Persephone, drawing her into the underworld and binding her to him as queen. This story was excessively perpetuated by Olympus.

When Zeus spied the mortal princess Europa, Eros’s arrow ignited his desire. Disguised as a white bull, Zeus carried Europa across the sea to Crete, where she bore him sons who became legendary rulers, including King Minos.

It was Eros’s intervention on Aphrodite’s command that caused Paris to fall in love with Helen of Sparta. The arrow bound them in uncontrollable passion, leading to Helen’s abduction (or elopement) and, ultimately, the Trojan War.

Eros and Psyche

Psyche is a mortal woman of extraordinary beauty whose radiance rivals that of Aphrodite. Jealous of Psyche’s fame, Aphrodite sends her son to punish the girl by making her fall in love with a hideous creature. But upon seeing Psyche, he is so struck by her beauty that he instead falls deeply in love with her himself. Eros spirits Psyche away to a secret palace, where he visits her each night under the cover of darkness, forbidding her to look upon his face. For a time, their love is blissful, but Psyche, persuaded by her jealous sisters and overcome by curiosity, betrays Eros’ trust and gazes upon him as he sleeps. Wounded by her betrayal, he flees, and Psyche is left to wander the earth in search of him. She is eventually brought before Aphrodite, who subjects her to a series of grueling and near-impossible trials. With courage, perseverance, and divine aid, Psyche completes the tasks, including a visit to the underworld to beg Persephone for beauty aids, and in the end, Zeus grants her immortality so she may be united with Eros forever. 

The Luminous Shard

Among the known shards of the broken Mirror of Pandora, none is so infamous or so paradoxical as the Luminous shard, the fragment that governs connection in all its forms. In mortal speech it is called the Shard of Love, though that name deceives. The Luminous Shard does not create affection; it amplifies the invisible cords that already bind one soul to another: cords of loyalty, longing, desire, even hatred Those who carry this shard can see these connections as filaments of golden light stretching between hearts. By drawing upon the shard’s radiance they may tighten or loosen those bonds, yet they never forge them anew. Connection is reflection, not creation. The god most closely associated with this fragment is Eros himself.

The tale of Psyche becomes the clearest expression of Eros’s curse. Psyche was a mortal so radiant that men abandoned the temples of Aphrodite to worship her instead. Sent on behalf of his mother to humble the girl, Eros looked upon her and saw threads brighter than any he had ever shaped. What surprised him the most was that lines that ran directly into his own being. At that instant the Luminous Shard needed to turn inward, but to touch Psyche’s heart would have meant manipulating his own, falsifying the bond before it began. Thus he could perceive love but never wield it for himself because the Mirror cannot reflect its own light.

Eros carried Psyche to a hidden palace and came to her only in darkness. “You must never see my face,” he told her, “for sight undoes the bond.” So long as their love remained unobserved, the reflection held: she felt him, but could not see him; he adored her, but could not touch the threads that bound them. When Psyche lifted her lamp, breaking the taboo of darkness, its flame cast light upon the reflection, and the sensation collapsed. He fled, and Psyche was left to wander through trials set by Aphrodite, searching for the god she had glimpsed too clearly.

Other lives

1st Age: Connie

3rd Age: Dalenar

4th Age: Kai

6th Age: Eros (Cupid)