most part he
hunts upon the mountains." And lest the secret should slip from her in
the way of further speech, loading her sisters with gold and gems, she
commanded Zephyrus to bear them away.

And they returned home, on fire with envy. "See now the injustice of
fortune!" cried one. "We, the elder children, are given like servants
to be the wives of strangers, while the youngest is possessed of so
great riches, who scarcely knows how to use them. You saw, Sister! what
a hoard of wealth lies in the house; what glittering gowns; what
splendour of precious gems, besides all that gold trodden under foot.
If she indeed hath, as she said, a bridegroom so goodly, then no one in
all the world is happier. And it may be that this husband, being of
divine nature, will make her too a goddess. Nay! so in truth it is. It
was even thus she bore herself. Already she looks aloft and breathes
divinity, who, though but a woman, has voices for her handmaidens, and
can command the winds." "Think," answered the other, "how arrogantly
she dealt with us, grudging us these trifling gifts out of all that
store, and when our company became a burden, causing us to be hissed
and driven away from her through the air! But I am no woman if she
keep her hold on 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