"Great Helios bids thee to his midnight revelry, O Queen of Love," they cried, "and we are come to guide thee along the golden pathway to the glowing palaces of Sunset Land." As the goddess stepped into the shell, they blew a loud salute upon their conches, and spread a silken sail above her head, and with music and laughter they crossed the shining sea to the golden halls of Helios. II Psyche, meanwhile, all unconscious of the wrath she had kindled in the breast of Aphrodite, was pining away at home in loneliness of heart. Little did she care for the worship that men paid her or for the offerings that they laid at her feet. It was for the love of a husband that she longed, and her soul was starving in the midst of rich gifts and the rapt, adoring gaze of worshippers. Her melancholy fastened on the king her father, and on all the palace, and soothsayers and augurs crowded round the doors with omens, charms, and riddling words, and prophesied all manner of evil. At last the king could bear it no longer, and he set forth on pilgrimage to Apollo's shrine at Delphi, and made question of the oracle. "Have the gods ordained that Psyche, my daughter, should die unwed, though the fairest maid on earth, or doth some bridegroom await her who tarrieth long? O god of Light, reveal his name, and save my child from death." Then the tripod shook, and from the midst of the incense and vapour the priestess made reply, "Think not of marriage-songs, O king, or bridal torches. On a lonely rock on snow-clad Ida must thou leave thy child, the bride of no mortal man. But a savage monster shall come, the terror of gods and men, and shall bear her away to his own land, and thine eyes shall see her no more. Wherefore make ready the funeral feast. Bring forth your sable robes of mourning, and bid the minstrels raise a dirge for the dead. For so the gods have willed it."