Q: Why does Cupid carry an arrow?
A: Because it is a weapon for the bow (beau). (P. 129)
* Though now almost universally viewed as a positive force, in 1902 love was considered a controversial and destructive passion. Many thousands of American men thought it closer to a disease than an emotion, blaming the French and Spanish for bringing it to previously untouched shores (overlooking the first known outbreak of love in the western hemisphere, Pocahontas’s catching of the contagion from englishman John Smith). Understanding that Cupid was the source of love, several states passed laws declaring the rosy cherub an outlaw and thus an acceptable target for the violence of dedicated bachelors. Cupid soon found himself in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.
Fig. 223 – A floorboard creaks! Cupid realizes the innkeeper has betrayed him! But can he reach his bow in time?
On the run and knowing that unarmed he would soon be a dead man, Cupid relied on the Shoshone training he received during his days with the cavalry fighting the Great Sioux War. Always talented with bow and arrow, he forced himself to become a crack shot. It was said he could aim, release, and re-nock at the rate of 20 dead bachelors per minute. Wandering from town to town, righting wrongs and creating instant love connections, Cupid’s legend grew, increasing the ranks of single young men determined to “be the one what bagged the Cupe.”
The title eventually went to Eustace Marble, a drunk vagabond who stabbed Cupid in an opium den while fighting over a tin of dogfood. Only then did Marble notice the wings on the addict’s back, and realize he’d murdered the only being capable of curing the unbearable loneliness which had driven Marble to drink. Marble was so struck by the irony of the situation that he changed his name to O.Henry and wrote “Gift of the Magi”.
