Cupid and Psyche |Lesbian Version|

Chapter 16: The Surrender

Sunlight peered through the small window as the chariot of Apollo ascended. Then the cell's door flung open, awaking Psyche from her troubled sleep. The priestesses came to escort her out as Venus had summoned her for another trial.

They brought her to the grove flanked by the river. Its banks extended into the distance and its low-lying bushes dotted around the stream. There were sheep wandering and grazing unguarded, and their fleeces sprouted with the glory of pure gold.

Venus stood on the hill in all her finery. When Psyche came, the goddess greeted her with a pretentious smile. And the mortal princess wondered what new misfortune awaited her. The goddess motioned for Psyche to stand by her side.

"Do you see the grove there?" she asked, pointing down with her glorious hand. "I order you to go yonder where the sheep with golden-shining wool are, and somehow obtain and bring back to me a turf of that precious fleece."

Psyche did not protest. She looked vacantly at the grove and then made her way there without a word. In fact, she had no intention of carrying out this task. The despaired princess just wanted to seek the ending of her suffering. She was thinking of throwing herself from a cliff above the river. But from that stretch of stream, sweet music of gentle voice and a caressing breeze seemed to speak to her.

"O maiden, it's true that you are harrowed by great trials, but do not tempt the most wretched death, venture not among the fearsome rams at this hour of the day. When they tend to be fired by the burning heat of the sun, they charge about in ferocious rage. With their sharp horns, their rock-hard heads, and sometimes their poisonous bites, they can wreak savage destruction on human folk."

"What should I do? Now I can't surrender to my death and neither can I succeed in my quest?" Psyche said to the disembodied voice.

"When the noontide has quelled the sun's heat and the serene river-breeze has lulled the sheep to rest, you shall be able to conceal yourself under that very tall plane-tree. Then as soon as the sheep relax their fury and their manners grow gentle, you must shake the foliage in the neighboring grove, and you shall find golden wool off the briers in the pasture."

Psyche sat down to rest near the bank with the nymphs of the river looking up to her sweetly. They blew bubbles to the surface with murmurs of how pitiful she was. Cupid had asked them for a favor to care for her sadden wife. They obeyed as the nymphs either feared or owed their love to her arrows.

So when the time came, the water-creatures helped Psyche crossing the river in safety. The girl followed every detail of the instruction. She went about the bushes picking the soft golden fleece clinging to the curved stems. Psyche gathered the yellow gold wool in her dress, and by twilight, she brought it back to Venus.

But the hazard in this second trial won her no favorable response from her mother-in-law. Venus frowned heavily as she looked at the gleaming wool Psyche had presented.

"I know quite well that this too is the work of divine being and not you," the goddess said. "Someone is helping from afar. No mortal wit did this, and I might know who the helper was."

Venus then started pacing back and forth, thinking of another task -a task that no one could be able to help her accomplish. Psyche sat slump beside the pile of precious fleece. The goddess turned back to her with a harsh smile again.

"I shall try you out in earnest, to see if you are indeed endowed with brave spirit and unique worth."

Venus brought her to the slop of a majestic mountain.

"See that high mountain-peak?" she said to the girl. "Perched above a dizzily high cliff, the livid waters of a dark spring comes tumbling down. I want you to hurry and bring me back in this small jug some icy water drawn from the stream's highest point where it gushes out from within."