“It is too much,” he said. “Is the girl mad? She will become the laughing-stock of Heaven. Besides, who is to weave the new spring garments of the gods?”
Three times he warned his daughter.
Three times she laughed softly and shook her head.
“Your hand opened the door, my father,” she said, “but of a surety no hand either of god or of mortal can shut it.”
He said, “You shall find it otherwise to your cost.” And he banished the Herd Boy for ever and ever to the farther side of the Bright River. The magpies flew together, from far and near, and they spread their wings for a frail bridge across the river, and the Herd Boy went over by the frail bridge. And immediately the magpies flew away to the ends of the earth and the Weaving Maiden could not follow. She was the saddest thing in Heaven. Long, long she stood upon the shore, and held out her arms to the Herd Boy, who tended his oxen desolate and in tears. Long, long she lay and wept upon the sand. Long, long she brooded, looking on the ground.
She arose and went to her loom. She cast aside the cloth that covered it. She took her shuttle in her hand.
“Age-long sorrow,” she said, “age-long sorrow!” Presently she dropped the shuttle. “Ah,” she moaned, “the pain of it,” and she leaned her head against the loom.
But in a little while she said, “Yet I would not be as once I was. I did not love or weep, I was neither glad nor sorry. Now I love and I weep—I am glad, and I am sorry.”
Her tears fell like rain, but she took up the shuttle and laboured diligently, weaving the garments of the gods. Sometimes the web was grey with grief, sometimes it was rosy with dreams. The gods were fain to go strangely clad. The Maiden’s father, the Deity of Light, for once was well pleased.
“That is my good, diligent child,” he said. “Now you are quiet and happy.”