Love and Psyche

The Envy of Venus
Once upon a time in a city there were a king and a queen, who had three beautiful daughters.
The two eldest, though very beautiful, could be praised with human words, while the beauty of the youngest was so out of the ordinary, that human language seemed insufficient and poor not only to describe it, but even to praise it.
Thus many citizens and many foreigners flocked there in great numbers, attracted by the fame of that rare beauty, and seeing her so enchanting they remained amazed and admired that marvelous prodigy: they brought their hand to their mouth with their index finger on the outstretched thumb and venerated her standing in adoration, as they would have done before Venus herself.
Word had already spread through the nearby cities and surrounding regions that the goddess, born from the blue depths of the sea and nourished by the dew of the foaming waves, had descended to earth and was wandering among the people, granting everyone the grace of her divine presence. Or, on the other hand, that not the sea, but the earth this time had produced from a new seed of celestial drops a new Venus, blossoming in the enchantment of her virginity.
Her fame grew immeasurably day by day, spreading to the nearby islands and from one place to another on the mainland. Already many people undertook long journeys, crossing deep seas to see this great wonder of the age. No one went to Paphos, Cnidus, or even Cythera to worship the goddess Venus anymore; sacrifices were postponed, temples were abandoned, sacred beds trampled, sacred ceremonies neglected; statues were left without wreaths, no one approached the altars, smeared with dead ashes. Instead, a maiden was invoked, in whose human form it was intended to worship a goddess; and in the morning, when the maiden appeared, she was venerated with sacrifices and offerings in place of Venus; then, when she passed through the squares, the crowded people addressed her prayers and threw flowers, loose or tied in bunches.
This exaggerated transference of divine honors to a mortal girl terribly irritated the soul of the true Venus, who, quivering with indignation and shaking her head, said to herself: "I, then, ancient mother of nature, I, the first origin of the elements, I, the Venus who nourishes the whole universe, am forced to share the glory of my majesty with a mortal girl?! And my name, celebrated in heaven, is profaned by earthly wickedness! And I must suffer sacrifices to a substitute, and a girl destined to die to carry her person around as if she were my image! In vain then did that shepherd, whose justice and loyalty was approved by the same supreme Jupiter, choose me in preference to such great goddesses because of my singular beauty? But she will not remain long in her happiness, whoever she is who is enjoying the honors due to me! I will make her even regret her "illicit beauty".
And without wasting any time she calls upon her winged and carefree son, who, with his bad habits and disregard for public morality, goes around at night armed with arrows and torches in other people's houses, desecrates nuptial beds and gets up to all sorts of mischief with impunity, without ever doing anything good. Already by nature unrestrained and insolent, he became even more frenzied following the speeches his mother made to him, who took him to that city, showed him Psyche up close (for that was the girl's name), and after having told him the whole story of that sort of beauty contest, groaning and trembling with indignation, said to him: "I beg you by the sonly love you owe me, by the sweet wounds of your arrows, by the gentle burns made by your torch, avenge your mother! But with complete vengeance. And punish that arrogant beauty severely. You must do only one thing: make this girl fall madly in love with a man who is the most vile in all the earth, a man whom fate has condemned to poverty, to the contempt of all, to prison, and who is so abject that no one like him can be found in the whole world."
Having said this, she kissed her son for a long time, holding him close, then she headed for the nearby wave-battered beach, and, skimming the trembling surface of the waters with her rosy feet, she stopped on dry land above the deep, open sea.
And immediately, as soon as she wished it and as if she had long commanded it, the sea's homage came to her: the Nereids gathered around her, singing in chorus, and Portunus with his bristly blue beard, and Salacia with her lap brimming with fish, and little Palemon riding a dolphin. The Tritons leaped in swarms here and there on the sea: one whistled softly into a sonorous conch, another shielded her from the scorching heat with a silken cloth, yet another held a mirror before the goddess's eyes, still others swam in pairs, pulling her chariot. This procession accompanied Venus toward the Ocean.