this great fortune; and if the insult done us has touched [71] thee
too, take we counsel together. Meanwhile let us hold our peace, and
know naught of her, alive or dead. For they are not truly happy of
whose happiness other folk are unaware."

And the bridegroom, whom still she knows not, warns her thus a second
time, as he talks with her by night: "Seest thou what peril besets
thee? Those cunning wolves have made ready for thee their snares, of
which the sum is that they persuade thee to search into the fashion
of my countenance, the seeing of which, as I have told thee often,
will be the seeing of it no more for ever. But do thou neither
listen nor make answer to aught regarding thy husband. Besides, we
have sown also the seed of our race. Even now this bosom grows with
a child to be born to us, a child, if thou but keep our secret, of
divine quality; if thou profane it, subject to death." And Psyche
was glad at the tidings, rejoicing in that solace of a divine seed,
and in the glory of that pledge of love to be, and the dignity of the
name of mother. Anxiously she notes the increase of the days, the
waning months. And again, as he tarries briefly beside her, the
bridegroom repeats his warning:

"Even now the sword is drawn with which thy sisters seek thy life.
Have pity on thyself, sweet wife, and upon our child, and see not
those evil women again." But the sisters make their way into the
palace once more, crying to her in [72] wily tones, "O Psyche! and
thou too wilt be a mother! How great will be the joy at home! Happy
indeed shall we be to have the nursing of the golden child. Truly if
he be answerable to the beauty of his parents, it will be a birth of
Cupid himself."