A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

Once upon a time, so goes the tale, a king and queen had three beautiful
daughters. The first and the second were fair indeed, but the beauty of
the youngest was such that all the people of the land worshipped it as a
thing sent straight from Olympus. They awaited her outside the royal
palace, and when she came, they threw chaplets of roses and violets for
her little feet to tread upon, and sang hymns of praise as though she
were no mortal maiden but a daughter of the deathless gods.
There were many who said that the beauty of Aphrodite herself was
less perfect than the beauty of Psyche, and when the goddess found that
men were forsaking her altars in order to worship a mortal maiden,
great was her wrath against them and against the princess who, all
unwittingly, had wrought her this shameful harm.
In her garden, sitting amongst the flowers and idly watching his
mother's fair white doves as they preened their snowy feathers in the
sun, Aphrodite found her son Eros, and angrily poured forth to him the
story of her shame.
"Thine must be the task of avenging thy mother's honour," she said.
"Thou who hast the power of making the loves of men, stab with one of
thine arrows the heart of this presumptuous maiden, and shame her
before all other mortals by making her love a monster from which all
others shrink and which all despise." With wicked glee Eros heard his
mother's commands. His beautiful face, still the face of a mischievous
boy, lit up with merriment. This was, in truth, a game after his own
heart. In the garden of Aphrodite is a fountain of sweet, another of
bitter water, and Eros filled two amber vases, one from each fountain,
hung them from his quiver, and
"Straight he rose from earth and down the wind Went glittering 'twixt
the blue sky and the sea."
In her chamber Psyche lay fast asleep, and swiftly, almost without a
glance at her, Eros sprinkled some of the bitter drops upon her lips, and
then, with one of his sharpest arrows, pricked her snowy breast. Like a
child who half awakes in fear, and looks up with puzzled, wondering
eyes, Psyche, with a little moan, opened eyes that were bluer than the