e promised that she would do according to his will. But the
bridegroom was fled away again with the night. And all that day she
spent in tears, repeating that she was now dead indeed, shut up in that
golden prison, powerless to console her sisters sorrowing after her, or
to see their faces; and so went to rest weeping.

And after a while came the bridegroom again, and lay down beside her,
and embracing her as she wept, complained, "Was this thy promise, my
Psyche? What have I to hope from thee? Even in the arms of thy
husband thou ceasest not from pain. Do now as thou wilt. Indulge
thine own desire, though it seeks what will ruin thee. Yet wilt thou
remember my warning, repentant too late." Then, protesting that she is
like to die, she obtains from him that he suffer her to see her
sisters, and present to them moreover what gifts she would of golden
ornaments; but therewith he ofttimes advised her never at any time,
yielding to pernicious counsel, to enquire concerning his bodily form,
lest she fall, [69] through unholy curiosity, from so great a height of
fortune, nor feel ever his embrace again. "I would die a hundred
times," she said, cheerful at last, "rather than be deprived of thy
most sweet usage. I love thee as my own soul, beyond comparison even
with Love himself. Only bid thy servant Zephyrus bring hither my
sisters, as he brought me. My honeycomb! My husband! Thy Psyche's
breath of life!" So he promised; and after the embraces of the night,
ere the light appeared, vanished from the hands of his bride.

And the sisters, coming to the place where Psyche was abandoned, wept
loudly among the rocks, and called upon her by name, so that the sound
came down to her, and running out of the palace distraught, she cried,
"Wherefore afflict your souls with lamentation? I whom you mourn am
here." Then, summoning Zephyrus, she reminded him of her husband's
bidding; and he bare them down with a gentle blast. "Enter now," she
said, "into my house, and relieve your sorrow in the company of Psyche
your sister."

And Psyche displayed to them all the treasures of the golden house, and
its great family of ministering voices, nursing in them the malice
which was already at their hearts. And at last one of them asks
curiously who the lord of that celestial array may be, and what manner
of man her husband? And Psyche [70] answered dissemblingly, "A young
man, handsome and mannerly, with a goodly beard. For the