So spake the stones of the tower; and Psyche [89] delayed not, but
proceeding diligently after the manner enjoined, entered into the
house of Proserpine, at whose feet she sat down humbly, and would
neither the delicate couch nor that divine food the goddess offered
her, but did straightway the business of Venus. And Proserpine
filled the casket secretly and shut the lid, and delivered it to
Psyche, who fled therewith from Hades with new strength. But coming
back into the light of day, even as she hasted now to the ending of
her service, she was seized by a rash curiosity. "Lo! now," she said
within herself, "my simpleness! who bearing in my hands the divine
loveliness, heed not to touch myself with a particle at least
therefrom, that I may please the more, by the favour of it, my fair
one, my beloved." Even as she spoke, she lifted the lid; and behold!
within, neither beauty, nor anything beside, save sleep only, the
sleep of the dead, which took hold upon her, filling all her members
with its drowsy vapour, so that she lay down in the way and moved
not, as in the slumber of death.

And Cupid being healed of his wound, because he would endure no
longer the absence of her he loved, gliding through the narrow window
of the chamber wherein he was holden, his pinions being now repaired
by a little rest, fled forth swiftly upon them, and coming to the
place where Psyche was, shook that sleep away from her, and set him
in his prison again, awaking her with the [90] innocent point of his
arrow. "Lo! thine old error again," he said, "which had like once
more to have destroyed thee! But do thou now what is lacking of the
command of my mother: the rest shall be my care." With these words,
the lover rose upon the air; and being consumed inwardly with the
greatness of his love, penetrated with vehement wing into the highest
place of heaven, to lay his cause before the father of the gods. And