have soothed
her anger, saying, "What fault, Mistress, hath thy son committed, that
thou wouldst destroy the girl he loves? Knowest thou not that he is
now of age? Because he wears his years so lightly must he seem to thee
ever but a child? Wilt thou for ever thus pry into the [79] pastimes
of thy son, always accusing his wantonness, and blaming in him those
delicate wiles which are all thine own?" Thus, in secret fear of the
boy's bow, did they seek to please him with their gracious patronage.
But Venus, angry at their light taking of her wrongs, turned her back
upon them, and with hasty steps made her way once more to the sea.

Meanwhile Psyche, tost in soul, wandering hither and thither, rested
not night or day in the pursuit of her husband, desiring, if she might
not sooth his anger by the endearments of a wife, at the least to
propitiate him with the prayers of a handmaid. And seeing a certain
temple on the top of a high mountain, she said, "Who knows whether
yonder place be not the abode of my lord?" Thither, therefore, she
turned her steps, hastening now the more because desire and hope
pressed her on, weary as she was with the labours of the way, and so,
painfully measuring out the highest ridges of the mountain, drew near
to the sacred couches. She sees ears of wheat, in heaps or twisted
into chaplets; ears of barley also, with sickles and all the
instruments of harvest, lying there in disorder, thrown at random from
the hands of the labourers in the great heat. These she curiously sets
apart, one by one, duly ordering them; for she said within herself, "I
may not neglect the shrines, nor the holy service, of any god there be,
but must rather [80] win by supplication the kindly mercy of them all."

And Ceres found her bending sadly upon her task, and cried aloud,
"Alas, Psyche! Venus, in the furiousness of her anger, tracks thy
footsteps through the world, seeking for thee to pay her the utmost
penalty; and thou, thinking of anything rather than thine own safety,
hast taken on thee the care of what belongs to me!" Then Psyche fell
down at her feet, and sweeping the floor with her hair, washing the
footsteps of the goddess in her tears, besought her mercy, with many
prayers:--"By the gladdening rites of harvest, by the lighted lamps and
mystic marches of the Marriage and mysterious Invention of thy daughter
Proserpine, and by all beside that the holy place of Attica veils in
silence, minister, I pray t