CUPID AND PSYCHE. 153 
Love knelt down beside her, and breathing between 
the parted honey of her lips, in kisses whispered that 
her prayer was answered ; and from that hour she was 
a partaker of the divinity of Love. “And this power 
shalt thou possess,” continued Love, “so long as thou 
canst withhold thine eyes from mine; for if once my 
image is mirrored in the floating orbs of thy beauty, 
from that moment shalt thou again become mortal, 
and subject to that death which overtakes the daugh¬ 
ters of the earth : for such was the doom uttered by 
the Thunderer on Olympus, on all who should covet 
an immortal love. So fondly do I adore thee,” con¬ 
tinued Love, “that I will bear thee away to a cave, 
where Jupiter once sheltered a fair mortal like thyself, 
from the jealous eyes of Juno, where it shall ever be 
light as noonday when I am absent, but dark as the 
hollow bed in the midst of a mountain, into which the 
air of heaven never breathed, when I visit thee, in all 
the immortality of my love.” Love bore her away 
to the beautiful cavern which had opened at the bid¬ 
ding of Jupiter, under one of ihe mountains of Arca¬ 
dia; it went arching far away; the entrance was 
concealed under masses of rugged underwood, while 
all around stretched an impenetrable barrier of gorse- 
