According to Greek legend, Psyche was a young princess who was so lovely that people began to compare her to Aphrodite (Venus), the Goddess of Love and Beauty, who became very angry.  Aphrodite ordered her son Eros (Cupid) to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man alive as vengeance against her.  Instead, however, Eros fell in love with Psyche and spirited her away and hid with her, upon the condition that she never see his face, for he did not want either his mother or his lover to know the truth of his guile.

By the urging of her jealous sisters and out of curiosity, Psyche eventually lights a lamp to see him, which awakens Eros, and he flees.  Psyche then, genuinely in love with the beautiful demigod to whom she has been married, wanders the Earth in search of her.  Finally, she enters the service of Aphrodite, who sets her a number of terrible tasks to accomplish in the Underworld.  All of these challenges she completes bravely and faithfully, and the Goddess Aphrodite relents and says that she can marry Eros with her blessing.

Psyche and Eros live together in bliss, and in order that she not grow old and die, she is made Goddess (or demigoddess) of the Soul.  She is often portrayed in art as a woman with butterfly wings, and the butterfly is the special symbol of Psyche.  The tale of Cupid (Eros) and Psyche is a famous classical love story and has been much embellished over the years, of course.  Yet this is why butterflies represent the soul, and why, by Psyche's relationship with Cupid (Eros), they are also associated with love.