Cinderella the cinder-maiden sits unbeknown in her earthly hutch;
Gibed and jeered at she bewails her lonely fate;
Nevertheless youngest-born she surpasses her sisters and endues a garment of the sun and stars,
From a tiny spark she ascends and irradiates the universe, and is wedded to the prince of heaven.
To what extent Apuleius may have amplified and elaborated the material that came to him, it would be impossible to say. As a writer he is full of invention, humour, lively wit and varied learning and experience; but his style is often overloaded and affected; and the Story as told by him is somewhat involved and laborious in places.
In re-telling the story I have taken the liberty (while adhering to his outlines) of using Greek instead of Latin names for the divinities, also of cutting down the details and transposing and slightly varying a few items—with the view of rendering the whole more transparent, so to speak.
For the conduct of Aphrodite, however, who is represented as ‘bawling’ and brawling in so undignified a way Apuleius is alone responsible!
Here and there I have adopted a phrase from the excellent translation in Bohn’s “Classics.” For the rest, there is a prose paraphrase of the story by Mr. Walter Pater in Marius, and one in verse by Mr. Robert Bridges, which may be consulted by those interested in the subject.
As to the “Early Verses” here reprinted with Eros and Psyche, they are selected from a small volume entitled Narcissus and other Poems, which was published by Henry S. King & Co. in 1873 (i.e. some fifty years ago). I was at that time at Cambridge, and I vividly remember the care and even anxiety with which—following the ideals then and there current—I launched these first attempts at verse. Nor is it impossible that as specimens of the work of that period they may (notwithstanding their juvenile character) present even now some points of interest.