Chapter 18

LOVE. Behold this serpent, this pitiless monster, whom a wonderful oracle has prepared for you, and who perhaps does not inspire such dread as you had imagined.

PSY. You, my Lord! you are that monster who, so spoke the oracle, threatens my sad life? you, who seem rather a god, deigning miraculously to come yourself to my rescue?

LOVE. What need of help in the midst of an empire where all that breathes only awaits your look to do its bidding, where I am the only monster you have to fear?

PSY. But small is the fear that a monster like you inspires, and if it has any venom, a soul has little reason to venture on the least complaint against a pleasing poison, the cure of which all the heart would dread! Scarce do I behold you than already my calmed fears suffer the image of death to vanish; and I feel I know not what unknown fire flow through my frozen veins: Esteem I have felt, and kindness, friendship, gratitude; compassion's innocent sorrows have made me know its power, but I have not yet felt what I now feel. I know not what it is, but I know that it fills me with delight, and causes me no alarm. The longer I gaze on you, the more I feel the spell. Nothing that I have ever felt had the same effect; and I would tell you, my Lord, that I love you, did I know what love is. Turn them not away, those eyes that poison me, those eyes so tender, so piercing, yet so loving, that look as if they shared the confusion they cause me. Alas! the more dangerous they prove, the more fondly I cling to them. What decree of heaven is it which I cannot understand, that forces me to tell you more than I should? I, whose modesty ought at least to wait that you explain the confusion that, I see, is within you. You sigh, my Lord, as I sigh; your senses, like mine, seem amazed. 'Tis my duty to be silent concerning this, yours to speak it, yet it is I who tell this to you.

LOVE. Your heart, Psyche, has ever been too insensible, and you must not wonder if, to repair the insult, Love now pays himself with usury for that which your soul ought to have granted him. The time is come in which your lips must breathe those sighs so long restrained; and while it draws you from that fierce humour, an endless rapture, as sweet as it is unknown, must wound you as deeply as it ought to have wounded you during those golden days the course of which your unfeeling soul has profaned.

PSY. Not to love is, then, a great crime?

LOVE. Do you suffer a hard punishment for it?

PSY. The punishment is mild indeed.

LOVE. The penalty is suited to the offence; and Love, on this glorious day, avenges himself of lack of love by an excess of love.

PSY. Would I had been punished before! My life's happiness lies in it. I ought to blush at it, or to whisper it low, but this torture has too many charms. Suffer me to say, and to repeat it aloud; though I said it a hundred times, I would never blush for it. It is not I who speak; and the wonderful empire, the amiable violence of your presence, sway my voice as soon as I begin to speak. Vainly does my modesty take secret offence at it; vainly would my sex and decency bind me to other laws; it is your eyes that dictate my answer, and my lips, the slaves of their almighty power, no longer consult me on the self-respect I owe myself.

LOVE. Fair Psyche, believe what these eyes tell you. Let yours vie with each other in instructing me of all your emotions. Trust this sighing heart, which, so long as yours will answer, will tell you more by a sigh than a hundred looks can express. 'Tis the sweetest language, the most powerful, the truest of all!

PSY. The understanding of it was due to both our hearts to make them equally satisfied. I have sighed, you have understood me; you sigh, and I heard you. But release me from doubt, my Lord, and tell me, if by the same road Zephyr has led you hither after me; to tell me what I hear now. When I arrived here, were you expected? and when you speak to him, are you obeyed?

LOVE. The empire I exercise over this sweet climate is as sovereign as yours is over my heart. _Love_ is favourable to me, and 'tis for his sake that Aeolus has placed Zephyr under my command. It was Love who, to reward my passion, dictated this oracle, by which your fair days that were threatened have been released from a throng of lovers; and which has freed me from the lasting obstacle of so many ardent sighs that were unworthy of being addressed to you. Ask not of me what this region be, nor the name of its ruler; you shall know it in time. My object is to win you; but I wish to do so by my services, my assiduous care, my constant vows, by a lover's sacrifice of all that I am, of all my power can effect. The splendour of my rank must not solicit you for me, neither must I make a merit of my power; and though sovereign lord of this blissful realm, I wish to owe you, Psyche, to nothing but my love.

Come with me, Princess, and admire its marvels; prepare your eyes and ears to the charms it will offer you. You shall gaze on woods and meads, contesting their beauties with gold and gems; you shall hear nothing but sweet concerts; a hundred beauties shall serve you here; without envy they shall worship you, and every moment with a humble and raptured soul shall solicit the honour of your commands.

PSY. My will waits upon yours; I can no longer have one of my own; but at any rate your oracle has severed me from two sisters, and the king, my father, whom my supposed death has all three reduced to bewail me. Suffer my sisters to be witnesses of my glory and your love for me, to dissipate the error which overwhelms their soul with mortal sorrow.

Lend them too, as you did me, Zephyr's wings, that they may facilitate their access to your empire, as they did mine. Let them see where I live, let them wonder at the success of my loss.

LOVE. You do not yield me all your soul, Psyche. This affectionate remembrance of a father and two sisters snatches from me part of that which I crave for my passion only. Have no eyes for anyone but for me, who have none but for you. Let love for me, and the desire of pleasing me, be your only thought, and when such cares dare divert you from it....

PSY. Can you be jealous of affection for kin?

LOVE. I am jealous, my Psyche, jealous of all nature. The sun's rays kiss you too often; your tresses are too sensible to the wooing of the breeze; no sooner does it caress them than I murmur. The very air which you breathe passes with too much pleasure between your lips; your robes cling too closely to your form. I know not what bewilders me, and I dread amidst your sighs some stray one.

But you would see your sisters. Be gone, Zephyr; Psyche commands, I cannot forbid.