Ira Veneris: A Latin Novella

Cupido et Psyche #2

by Rachel Beth Cunning

Psyche is pregnant and alone in the woods at night without food, help, or shelter. She’s desperate to find her husband Cupid, but he left after she wounded him. Psyche swears that she will find him and starts off on a long quest that has her wandering homeless and destitute all over the world looking for her husband. Psyche knows that it’s not only her marriage that is at stake, but also the immortality of her future child. Worse, Venus soon learns of Cupid and Psyche’s marriage, and her anger and hatred of Psyche boils and erupts into a dangerous fury. Psyche is in danger with no one to protect her. Will she find Cupid? Is he even looking for her? What will happen when Venus inevitably finds Psyche? How far is Psyche willing to go for Cupid and their child? Will she go to the underworld itself? This novella is written for intermediate Latin III and IV high school students. It is over 11,000 words long, and it uses only 334 words. Of those words, some are clear cognates, names, or glossed words that were essential to the story but appeared fewer than ten times. A student would need to know 250 unique words to read this text. This edition includes both a glossary of the unique word forms used as well as a traditional dictionary.

178 pages, paperback

Published July 28, 2019

Reviews

[Kelly Macfarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good novella for intermediate readers, in particular ones who are looking for something enjoyable to read as they work on improving their fluency and understanding of Latin. The simple story line, with its repeated words, phrases, and sentences mean an intermediate student can read and understand rather than parse, puzzle, decode and translate, while the simple story, a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche story, picking up where Psyche realizes who her husband really is, is compelling enough to keep the reader reading. There were a few infelicities (prepositions used with domus; gerunds where Latin would have preferred a gerundive phrase) but overall a strong and compelling story.

[Hayden · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent continuation of the story from Cupido et Psyche. It increases the complexity of the Latin, but still retains its comprehensibility for upper level students. The story evokes empathy for Psyche and does a good job capturing the hateful and spiteful personality of Venus.