into the box; but she was tempted by a strong desire, and so she
opened it, that she might see and use for herself the beauty of
the gods. But when she opened the box it was empty, save of a
vapour of sleep, which seized upon Psyche, and made her as if
she were dead. In this unhappy state, brought upon her by the
vengeance of Aphrodite, she would have been lost for ever, but
Eros, healed of the wound caused by the burning oil, came
himself to her help, roused her from the death-like sleep, and
put her in a place of safety. Then Eros flew up into the abode
of the gods, and besought Zeus to protect Psyche against his
mother Aphrodite; and Zeus, calling an assembly of the gods,
sent Hermes to bring Psyche thither, and then he declared her
immortal, and she and Eros were wedded to each other; and there
was a great feast in Olympus. And the sisters of Psyche, who had
striven to ruin her, were punished for their crimes, for Eros
appeared to them one after the other in a dream, and promised to
make each of them his wife, in place of Psyche, and bade each
throw herself from the great rock whence Psyche was carried into
the beautiful valley by Zephyrus; and both the sisters did as
the dream told them, and they were dashed to pieces, and
perished miserably.

Now this is the story of Eros and Psyche, as it is told by
Apuleius, in his book of _Metamorphoses_, written nearly two
thousand years ago. But the story was told ages before Apuleius
by people other than the Greeks, and in a language which existed
long before theirs. It is the tale of Urvasi and Pururavas, which
is to be found in one of the oldest of the Vedas, or Sanskrit
sacred books, which contain the legends of the Aryan race before
it broke up and went in great fragments southward into India, and