she led him to the city, and showed him Psyche as she walked.

"I pray thee," she said, "give thy mother a full revenge. Let this
maid become the slave of an unworthy love." Then, embracing him
closely, she departed to the shore and took her throne upon the crest
of the wave. And lo! at her unuttered will, her ocean-servants are
in waiting: the daughters of Nereus are there singing their song, and
Portunus, and Salacia, and the tiny charioteer of the dolphin, with a
host of Tritons leaping through the billows. And one blows softly
through his sounding sea-shell, another spreads a silken web against
the sun, a third presents the mirror to the eyes of his mistress,
while the others swim side by side below, drawing her chariot. Such
was the escort of Venus as she went upon the sea.

[64] Psyche meantime, aware of her loveliness, had no fruit thereof.
All people regarded and admired, but none sought her in marriage. It
was but as on the finished work of the craftsman that they gazed upon
that divine likeness. Her sisters, less fair than she, were happily
wedded. She, even as a widow, sitting at home, wept over her
desolation, hating in her heart the beauty in which all men were
pleased.

And the king, supposing the gods were angry, inquired of the oracle
of Apollo, and Apollo answered him thus: "Let the damsel be placed on
the top of a certain mountain, adorned as for the bed of marriage and
of death. Look not for a son-in-law of mortal birth; but for that
evil serpent-thing, by reason of whom even the gods tremble and the
shadows of Styx are afraid."

So the king returned home and made known the oracle to his wife. For