A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

And again the reeds murmured, "Beware! for the golden-fleeced sheep,
with their great horns, are evil creatures that lust for the lives of mortals,
and will slay thee even as thy feet reach the other bank. Only when the
sun goes down does their vice depart from them, and while they sleep
thou canst gather of their wool from the bushes and from the trunks of
the trees."
And again the heart of Psyche felt a thrill of happiness, because she
knew that she was loved and cared for still. All day she rested in the
wood by the river and dreamt pleasant day-dreams, and when the sun
had set she waded to the further shore and gathered the golden wool in
the way that the reeds had told her. When in the evening she came to
the goddess, bearing her shining load, the brow of Aphrodite grew
dark.
"If thou art so skilled in magic that no danger is danger to thee, yet
another task shall I give thee that is worthy of thy skill," she said, and
laid upon Psyche her fresh commands.
Sick with dread, Psyche set out next morning to seek the black stream
out of which Aphrodite had commanded her to fill a ewer. Part of its
waters flowed into the Styx, part into the Cocytus, and well did Psyche
know that a hideous death from the loathly creatures that protected the
fountain must be the fate of those who risked so proud an attempt. Yet
because she knew that she must "dree her weird," as Pan had said, she
plodded onward, towards that dark mountain from whose side gushed
the black water that she sought. And then, once again, there came to her
a message of love. A whirring of wings she heard, and
"O'er her head there flew the bird of Jove, The bearer, of his servant,
friend of Love, Who, when he saw her, straightway towards her flew,
And asked her why she wept, and when he knew, And who she was, he
said, 'Cease all thy fear, For to the black waves I thy ewer will bear,
And fill it for thee; but, remember me, When thou art come unto thy
majesty.'"
And, yet once again, the stricken heart of Psyche was gladdened, and
when at nightfall she came with her ewer full of water from the dread