Her sisters, less fair than she, were happily wedded.

She, even as a widow, sitting at home, wept over her desolation, hating in her heart the beauty in which all men were pleased.
And the king, supposing the gods were angry, inquired of the oracle of Apollo, and Apollo answered him thus: "Let the damsel be placed on the top of a certain mountain, adorned as for the bed of marriage and of death.

Look not for a son-in-law of mortal birth; but for that evil serpent-thing, by reason of whom even the gods tremble and the shadows of Styx are afraid." So the king returned home and made known the oracle to his wife.

For many days she lamented, but at last the fulfilment of the divine precept is urgent upon her, and the company make ready to conduct the maiden to her deadly bridal.

And now the nuptial torch gathers dark smoke and ashes: the pleasant sound of the pipe is changed into a cry: the marriage hymn concludes in a sorrowful wailing: below her yellow wedding-veil the bride shook away her tears; insomuch that the whole city was afflicted together at the ill-luck of the stricken house.
But the mandate of the god impelled the hapless Psyche to her fate, and, these solemnities [65] being ended, the funeral of the living soul goes forth, all the people following.