"Psyche, Psyche," she heard, "why wilt thou pollute my stones with blood? I have done thee no wrong, yet thou wouldst make men hate me and shun the rock on which I stand. As for thee, it would avail thee nought, for thy soul would dwell for ever in the Kingdom of the Dead, and the shadow of thyself, faint and formless, would glide about my walls, and with thin-voiced wailing weep for thy lost love; men, hearing it, would flee from me, and for lack of the builder's care, my stones would fall asunder, and of all my proud beauty naught would be left, save a mound of moss-grown stones and thy spirit's mournful guardianship." Then Psyche knelt and kissed the stones. "Poor tower," she said, "I would not harm thee. Thou canst tell me, perchance, some better way, for I must bear this casket to the Queen of the Dead, and beg for a gift of beauty immortal, that I may return to the earth worthy of my lord." "Hadst thou thrown thyself over the edge, thou wouldst never have come to the Queen of the Dead, but wailing and forlorn wouldst have wandered on the shores of the Land that has no name; for betwixt that land and Hades flows the wide Stygian stream. One boat there is that can cross it, and therein sits Charon, the ferryman of souls. Greedy of gain is he and hard of heart, and none will he take across who bear not a coin of gold in their mouths. And the pale ghosts of those who have died away from their loved ones, when none were by to pay the last rites of the dead and place the gold coin in their mouths--all these flock wailing around him and beg him with heart-rending cries to take them over the stream. But to all their entreaties he turneth a deaf ear and beateth them back with his oar. E'en hadst thou prevailed on him and come to the palace of pale Persephone, thou couldst not have entered in; for at the gates sits Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hell, and none may pass him without a cake of barley-bread. But his soul loveth the taste of earth-grown corn, and while he devours it the giver may pass by unscathed." "The coin of gold and the barley-cake I can get," she said, "but how I can reach the Underworld alive I know not."