Let this maid become the slave of an unworthy love." Then, embracing him closely, she departed to the shore and took her throne upon the crest of the wave.

And lo! at her unuttered will, her ocean-servants are in waiting: the daughters of Nereus are there singing their song, and Portunus, and Salacia, and the tiny charioteer of the dolphin, with a host of Tritons leaping through the billows.

And one blows softly through his sounding sea-shell, another spreads a silken web against the sun, a third presents the mirror to the eyes of his mistress, while the others swim side by side below, drawing her chariot.

Such was the escort of Venus as she went upon the sea.
[64] Psyche meantime, aware of her loveliness, had no fruit thereof.
All people regarded and admired, but none sought her in marriage.

It was but as on the finished work of the craftsman that they gazed upon that divine likeness.