In the blue waters of the Ægean Sea, midway between Greece and Egypt, lies the fertile land of Crete. Here, long, long ago, when the gods still walked on earth in human form and the sons of men were as children playing in a fair garden, there ruled a king who was the father of three lovely daughters. They lived in a palace in the rich Omphalian plain, beneath the shade of snow-capped Ida, surrounded by smiling gardens and fruitful vineyards, with a glimpse, away to the southward, of the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. So great was the beauty of these three maidens that their fame went abroad throughout all the land, and wealthy wooers flocked from far and wide to win their hands in marriage. The two elder sisters soon became the brides of two great princes, and were well content to pass their days in the sunshine of their husbands' love and admiration, and to deck themselves with gold and jewels, and listen to the praise of their beauty upon the lips of men. For the gods had given them grace of form and feature, but their souls within were vain and foolish, so that in after-years, when they found their sister more blessed than they, their vanity and envy brought them to an evil end. The youngest sister, whose name was Psyche, continued to live on at home long after the other two were married. In face and form she was as fair as they, whilst her soul within was so pure and beautiful that it shed a heavenly radiance about her, so that when men looked into her face all thoughts of love and wooing died out of their hearts, and they worshipped her as one of the Immortals. Wherever she passed voices were hushed and heads were bowed in prayer, till at length it was rumoured that Aphrodite herself, the Queen of Love, had come to live with men. The temples stood deserted and the altars bare of sacrifice, and from far and wide men flocked to Psyche with gifts and garlands and songs of praise. Then foam-born Aphrodite, Queen of Love, was filled with jealousy and wrath that a mortal should usurp her place and name, and she cast about in her mind for some means of revenge. "Verily, I must make this Cretan maiden rue the day when first men laid my offerings at her feet. I will smite her with so dire a malady that her very beauty shall be turned to scorn, and the heights to which her impious pride hath raised her shall be as nought to the depths of her shame and misery." Thereupon she sent for her son, the great god Eros, who lords it over gods and men. The poison of his fiery darts none can withstand, and with him it rests to burn men's hearts with the fever of unsatisfied desire, or so to temper the venom of his shafts that it runs like heavenly nectar through the veins. Yet the joy that he gives withal is akin to madness, and the torture of his wrath a frenzy unquenchable.