O how oft, remembering Psyche, I counted her happy and unhappy;
happy in the possession of such a husband, unhappy in his loss, most
happy in receiving him again from Jove. But even as I gazed, he, beating
the air with his sacred wings that gleamed with clearest gold, departed
with his load of newly fashioned arrows from those parts, and at the
bidding of the goddess I turned to the spring wherein he used to temper
his golden darts fresh forged with fiercest fire. Its silver waters,
gushing of themselves from the earth and shaded along the margin by a
growth of myrtle and dogwood, were neither violated in their purity by
the approach of bird or beast, nor suffered aught from the sun's
distemperature, and as I leaned forward to catch the reflection of my
own figure I could discern the clear bottom free from every trace of
mud[56]. The goddess, for that the hour was already hot, had doffed her
transparent veil and plunged her into the cool water, and now commanded
me that having stripped I too should enter the spring. We were yet
disporting ourselves in the lovely fountain, when, raising my head and
gazing with longing eyes around, I saw amid the leaves a youth, pale and
shy of appearance, who with slow steps was advancing towards the sacred
water. As I looked on him he was pleasant in my eyes, but that he should
behold me naked filled me with shame, and I turned away to hide my
unwonted blushes.
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