I had this confusion for some time now,
Why If Cupid is the roman god of Love and erotic beauty,often represented as a beautiful boy with wings carryings a bow and two set of arrows (gold headed for love and lead headed for hatred)
then how is that Cupdity means desire especially for money and possesions?
So I searched for the story ……..
Once upon a time there was a king with three daughters. They were all beautiful, but by far the most beautiful was the youngest, Psyche. She was so beautiful that people began to neglect the worship of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Venus was very jealous, and asked her son Cupid (the boy with the arrows) to make Psyche fall in love with a horrible monster. When he saw how beautiful she was, Cupid dropped the arrow meant for her and pricked himself, and fell in love with her.
Despite her great beauty no-one wanted to marry Psyche. Her parents consulted an oracle, and were told that she was destined to marry a monster, and they were to take her to the top of a mountain and leave her there. The west wind took her and wafted her away to a palace, where she was waited on by invisible servants. When night came her new husband visited her, and told her that he would always visit her by night and she must never try to see him.
Although her invisible husband was kind and gentle with her, and the invisible servants attended to her every desire, Psyche grew homesick. She persuaded her husband to allow her sisters to visit her. When they saw how she lived they became very jealous and talked Psyche into peeking at her husband, saying that he was a monster who was fattening her up to be eaten and that her only chance of safety was to kill him. Psyche took a lamp and a knife, but when she saw her beautiful husband, Cupid, she was so surprised she dripped some hot wax onto his shoulder, waking him. He took in the situation at a glance and immediately left Psyche and the magnificent palace she had been living in disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Psyche roamed about looking for her husband, and eventually in desperation approached his mother, Venus. Still angry, the goddess set various tasks for Psyche, all of which she passed, with a bit of help from ants and river gods. At last Cupid found out what was going on, and he persuaded Jupiter to order Venus to stop her persecution of Psyche. Then they were married and lived happily ever after – and it really was ever after since Psyche was made a goddess.
For those of you who still want to know the answer…..Hehahaha
Cupido was a proper name alongside of cupido, a common noun, but when we deal with deities, the line between proper and common names is conventional. Pagan gods are personified qualities. For instance, Old Icelandic hnoss meant “treasure, woman’s ornament,” and there was a goddess called Hnoss. The great 13th-century Icelandic scholar Snorri Strurluson says: “She is so lovely that whatever is beautiful and valuable is called ‘treasure’ from her name.” Surprisingly, a man of Snorri’s intellect believed that the divine name had been coined first and the common name derived from it, though it is obvious that the order of events was reverse. In our editions, proper names are spelled with capital letters. In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, this rule did not exist, but, regardless of spelling, we understand that Hnoss is the personification of hnoss. Likewise, Cupido “Cupid” is personified desire. Latin cupidus meant “eagerly desirous” and cupiditas, an abstract noun, meant “desire,” all from the verb cupere. Cupidity narrowed its meaning and came to designate “inordinate desire for gain.” Such changes regularly occur in the history of words. We also recognize the root of cupere in concupiscence “lust.” One can wish, and wish strongly, for many things.
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