CHAP. II.
another must excite her jealousy and anger was one which must sooner or later be imported into the myth. With its introduction the
framework of the story was completed ; and so the tale ran that
Venus charged her son to fill Psyche with the madness which made
Titania fall in love with the enchanted Bottom. But Psyche, the
dawn with its soft breath, is so beautiful that Eros (Amor, Cupido)
falls in love with her himself, and taking her to a secret cave (the
cave of Dikte or of Lyktos), visits her as Pururavas comes to Urvasi.
Stirred up by Venus, her sisters tell Psyche that she is wedded to a
hideous monster, and at length her curiosity is so roused that, taking
a lamp, she gazes upon her lover and beholds before her the per-
fection of beauty. But a drop of oil falls from her lamp on the
sleeping god, and the brief happiness of Psyche is ended. She is
left desolate like Pururavas, and like him she must go in search of
her lost love. Eos has looked on Helios, and he has plunged
beneath the sea. If she seek him, it must be through the weary
hours of the night, amidst many perils and at the cost of vast labour.
In every temple Psyche looks for her lover until at last she reaches
the dwelling of Venus, under whose spell he lies like Odysseus in the
home of Kirke or Kalypso. At her bidding she accomplishes some
hard and degrading tasks, under which she must have died but for
the love of F-ros, who, though invisible, still consoled and cheered
her. By his aid she at last made her peace with Venus, and becom-
ing immortal, was united with her lover for ever. Of all these
incidents not one has been invented by Appuleius ; and all that can
be said is that he has weakened rather than strengthened the beauty
of the myth by adapting it to the taste of a thoroughly artificial age. Having taken up a story which had not yet been brought within the
charmed circle of epic or lyric poetry, he has received credit for an
originality to which the familiar tale of Beauty and the Beast, with
which It is substantially identical, may lay an equal claim.^
' In Hindu folk-lore this is ihc story of Gandharba-sena. Of this being Cap- tain Burton [Tales of hidian Devilry, preface xiii.) says that he "is a quasi- historical personage who lived a century preceding the Christian era." Even granting the fact, we have here only a name belonging to the same class with Roland, Arthur, Dietriih of Bern, or others for whom an historical existence has been clanned The name clearly suggests a comjiarison with Gandharva Pururavas. The story of Gandharba- sena Captain Burton regards as the ori- ginal of the Golden Ass of Appuleius. The liyjiothesis is scarcely necessary, unless it is to be maintained that the whole folk-lore of Greece, Germany, Scandinavia, and other countries has been bochly imported from India. The story of Gandharba-sena is, however, the story of Midas, of the Irish Lavra Loingsech, and of the Little Ass in Grimm's collection ; and it may be noted that the being transformed into an ass in the romance of Appuleius is Lucius of Corinth (Phoibos Lykeios). The story of Psyche is also told in the Gaelic Tale of the Daughter of the Skie.s.
