Psyche

Molière abandons his usual satirical targets for this courtly spectacle, adapting the ancient myth of Psyche into a grand theatrical event written for Louis XIV at Versailles in 1671. When mortals cease worshipping Venus in favor of Psyche's unparalleled beauty, the goddess commands Cupid to make the princess fall in love with a monster. Instead, Cupid himself falls for Psyche, visiting her only in darkness and forbidding her ever to look upon his face. But curiosity destroys everything: Psyche holds a lamp to her sleeping lover, discovers a god, and loses him. What follows is her harrowing journey through trials and suffering to win him back. This is Molière at his most elevated and ornate, a tragicomedy of love, jealousy, and redemption performed with ballet interludes and elaborate stage machinery for the Sun King himself. The play captures something timeless about the danger of distrust and the price of transgression in matters of the heart.