So Psyche took the casket, and her heart sank within her at the thought of that dread journey. And the nymphs waved sadly to her as she went away, for never yet had they looked on one who had returned from the dark land of shadows.
XI
Away from the pleasant vale went Psyche, for she knew full well that nowhere in that fair place could she find a way down to the world below. As a child, when she had lived in her father's halls, her nurse had told her strange tales of dark and fearsome caves which men called the mouth of Hades, and how those who went down them never returned; or if one perchance, more favoured than the rest, came back into the sunlight, his face was pale and his strength departed, and he talked wildly of strange things that none could understand.
Far over the country-side she wandered and asked for the gate of Hades, and some pitied her weakness, and some laughed at her foolishness, and all men thought her mad.
"For beggar and king, for wise and foolish, the road to Hades is one," they said, "and all must travel it soon or late. If thou seekest it, in very sooth, go throw thyself from off yon lofty tower, and thou wilt find it fast enough."
Sadly she went and stood on the tower, for she saw no other way. Once again she bid farewell to the earth and the sunlight, and was about to leap from a pinnacle, when she thought she heard a voice calling her by name, and she hushed her breath and listened.
"Psyche, Psyche," she heard, "why wilt thou pollute my stones with blood? I have done thee no wrong, yet thou wouldst make men hate me and shun the rock on which I stand. As for thee, it would avail thee nought, for thy soul would dwell for ever in the Kingdom of the Dead, and the shadow of thyself, faint and formless, would glide about my walls, and with thin-voiced wailing weep for thy lost love; men, hearing it, would flee from me, and for lack of the builder's care, my stones would fall asunder, and of all my proud beauty naught would be left, save a mound of moss-grown stones and thy spirit's mournful guardianship."
Then Psyche knelt and kissed the stones.
"Poor tower," she said, "I would not harm thee. Thou canst tell me, perchance, some better way, for I must bear this casket to the Queen of the Dead, and beg for a gift of beauty immortal, that I may return to the earth worthy of my lord."
"Hadst thou thrown thyself over the edge, thou wouldst never have come to the Queen of the Dead, but wailing and forlorn wouldst have wandered on the shores of the Land that has no name; for betwixt that land and Hades flows the wide Stygian stream. One boat there is that can cross it, and therein sits Charon, the ferryman of souls. Greedy of gain is he and hard of heart, and none will he take across who bear not a coin of gold in their mouths. And the pale ghosts of those who have died away from their loved ones, when none were by to pay the last rites of the dead and place the gold coin in their mouths—all these flock wailing around him and beg him with heart-rending cries to take them over the stream. But to all their entreaties he turneth a deaf ear and beateth them back with his oar. E'en hadst thou prevailed on him and come to the palace of pale Persephone, thou couldst not have entered in; for at the gates sits Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hell, and none may pass him without a cake of barley-bread. But his soul loveth the taste of earth-grown corn, and while he devours it the giver may pass by unscathed."