The Golden Asse by Lucius Apuleius
page 88 of 232 (37%)
page 88 of 232 (37%)
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And when the solemnity was ended, they went to bring the sorrowful spowse, not to her marriage, but to her final end and burial. And while the father and mother of Psyches did go forward weeping and crying unto this enterprise, Psyches spake unto them in this sort: Why torment your unhappy age with continuall dolour? Why trouble you your spirits, which are more rather mine than yours? Why soyle ye your faces with teares, which I ought to adore and worship? Why teare you my eyes in yours? why pull you your hory haires? Why knocke ye your breasts for me? Now you see the reward of my excellent beauty: now, now you perceive, but too late, the plague of envy. When the people did honour me, and call me new Venus, then yee should have wept, then you should have sorrowed as though I had been dead: for now I see and perceive that I am come to this misery by the only name of Venus, bring mee, and as fortune has appointed, place me on the top of the rocke, I greatly desire to end my marriage, I greatly covet to see my husband. Why doe I delay? why should I refuse him that is appointed to destroy all the world. Thus ended she her words, and thrust her selfe among the people that followed. Then they brought her to the appointed rocke of the high hill, and set [her] hereon, and so departed. The Torches and lights were put out with the teares of the people, and every man gone home, the miserable Parents well nigh consumed with sorrow, gave themselves to everlasting darknes. Thus poore Psyches being left alone, weeping and trembling on the toppe of the rocke, was blowne by the gentle aire and of shrilling Zephyrus, and carried from the hill with a meek winde, which retained her garments up, and by little and little bought her downe into a deepe valley, where she was laid in a bed of most sweet and fragrant flowers. |
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