Here, take this box and go your way to the infernal shades,
and give this box to Proserpine and say, 'My mistress Venus
desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending
her sick son she has lost some of her own.' Be not too long on
your errand, for I must paint myself with it to appear at the
circle of the gods and goddesses this evening."
Psyche was now satisfied that her destruction was at hand, being
obliged to go with her own feet directly down to Erebus.
Wherefore, to make no delay of what was not to be avoided, she
goes to the top of a high tower to precipitate herself headlong,
thus to descend the shortest way to the shades below. But a voice
from the tower said to her, "Why, poor unlucky girl, dost thou
design to put an end to thy days in so dreadful a manner? And what
cowardice makes thee sink under this last danger who hast been so
miraculously supported in all thy former?" Then the voice told her
how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, and how
to avoid all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the
three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon, the ferryman, to take her
across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice
added, "When Proserpine has given you the box filled with her
beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by you, that
you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity
to pry into the treasure of the beauty of the goddesses.
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