Chapter 24
PSY. I come to bid you farewell; my lover wishes your departure. He can no longer endure that you should deprive him of a particle of the joy he feels in being alone to contemplate me. The merest look, the slightest word, is a treasure for his love, and I rob him of it when I grant it to my sisters in favour of the ties of blood.
AGL. Jealousy is very keen, and these nice sentiments well deserve that he who shows such tenderness for you should be considered above the generality of lovers. I speak thus because I do not know him; nor do you know his name, or that of those to whom he owes the light. This alarms us. I hold him to be a mighty prince, whose power is extreme, far above kingly sway. His treasure which he has strewn beneath your feet would put Abundance herself to the blush. Your love for him is as keen as his for you; you are his delight, he is yours; your happiness, my sister, would be perfect if you but knew whom you love.
PSY. What care I! He loves me. The more he sees me, the more I please him. There are no pleasures which delight the soul, but anticipate my wishes. I do not understand the cause of your alarm when all here obeys my will.
AGL. What boots it that all bows to you here if this lover ever conceals what he is? If we are alarmed, it is for your interest alone. Vain it is that everything meets you with a smile, and brings delight; true love scorns reserve; and whoever persists in concealment is conscious that he is in some way open to reproach. Should this suitor prove fickle--for often change in love is pleasing, and between ourselves, I dare say that, however dazzling the flash of your charms, there are others as fair as you--if, I say, another beauty should bind him under new thralls, if in the state in which you are now, alone and defenceless at his mercy, he should go so far as to offer violence, on whom should the king wreak his vengeance for this change or this insolence?
PSY. You fill me with dread. Kind heaven! can I be so unfortunate?
CID. Who knows but that Hymen's knot....
PSY. Say no more, I could not bear it.
AGL. I have but one word more to say. This prince who loves you, sways the winds, gives us Zephyr's wings for a chariot, and every moment lavishes on you new pleasures, when he thus openly breaks the order of nature, may perhaps mingle some little imposture with so much love. Perhaps this palace is nothing more than an enchantment; these gilt ceilings, these mountains of wealth, with which he buys your affection, so soon as he shall be weary of your caresses, will vanish in a moment. You know as well as ourselves what power lies in spells.
PSY. In my turn, what cruel alarms I feel!
AGL. Our friendship seeks your good only.
PSY. Farewell, sisters, we must close our meeting; I love, and fear lest he should grow impatient; go, and to-morrow, if I may, you shall see me, either happier or crushed by the deepest anguish.
AGL. We go to apprise the king of the new glory, the excess of bliss which heaven showers upon you.
CID. We go to relate to him the surprising and marvellous tale of so pleasing a change.
PSY. Trouble him not, sisters, with your suspicions, and when you describe to him this charming empire....
AGL. We both know what we must conceal and what speak, and need no lessons.
ZEPHYR _carries off_ PSYCHE'S _sisters in a cloud, which descends to the earth, and in which he bears them rapidly away._