Most humbly she
offered up her prayer, but Venus could not look at her earthly beauty
without anger.
"Vain girl," said she, "perhaps you have come to make amends for the
wound you dealt your husband; you shall do so. Such clever people can
always find work!"
Then she led Psyche into a great chamber heaped high with mingled
grain, beans, and lintels (the food of her doves), and bade her
separate them all and have them ready in seemly fashion by night.
Heracles would have been helpless before such a vexatious task; and
poor Psyche, left alone in this desert of grain, had not courage to
begin. But even as she sat there, a moving thread of black crawled
across the floor from a crevice in the wall; and bending nearer, she
saw that a great army of ants in columns had come to her aid. The
zealous little creatures worked in swarms, with such industry over the
work they like best, that, when Venus came at night, she found the task
completed.
"Deceitful girl," she cried, shaking the roses out of her hair with
impatience, "this is my son's work, not yours. But he will soon forget
you. Eat this black bread if you are hungry, and refresh your dull mind
with sleep. To-morrow you will need more wit."
Psyche wondered what new misfortune could be in store for her. But when
morning came, Venus led her to the brink of a river, and, pointing to
the wood across the water, said, "Go now to yonder grove where the
sheep with the golden fleece are wont to browse.
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