Hera.
Then what was the meaning of your apparent infatuation for Psyche?
Eros.
O do not call it "apparent." It was genuine and it was all-absorbing. But it was absolutely exceptional. Looking back, it seems to me that I must have been gazing at myself in a mirror, and have dismissed an arrow before I realised who was the quarry. It is not necessary to remind you of the circumstances——
Hera.
You would, I suppose, describe them as exceptional?
Eros.
As wholly exceptional. And could I be expected to prolong an ardour so foreign to my nature? The victim of passion cannot be a contemplator at the same
moment, and I may frankly admit to you, Hera, that during the period of my infatuation for Psyche, there were complaints from every province of the universe. It was said that unless my attention could be in a measure diverted from that admirable girl, there would be something like a stagnation of general vitality. Phœbus remarked one day, that if the ploughman became the plough the cessation of harvests would be inevitable.