The nymph Perestere felt his vengeance in a different manner. Cupid was wandering with his mother over a meadow, beautifully enamelled with flowers "all fragrance and of various hues," when, in a playful mood, the youthful deity challenged Venus to see which could gather the greatest number in the least time. Cupid would have been triumphant, had not Perestere, who accompanied them, attempted to win the favour of the goddess, by assisting to fill her basket. In revenge, Cupid changed her into a dove.
The beautiful fable of the winged deity's love for Psyche, is the most pleasing of those related of him.
The nymph Psyche was one of those exquisite beings, so seldom met with in the present degenerate days; and even then, so rare was her beauty, that the people of earth looked on her almost as a divinity, and in some instances would have worshipped her in the belief that she was Venus, visiting the earth.
"In her bower she lay, like a snow-wreath flung,
Mid flowers of brightest hue:
Pouting roses about her hung,
Violets 'neath her mantle sprung,
Shedding their light of blue.
"Pillowed on one fair arm she lay,