"Pause! for know that from the world where you are going none ever return. There is only one path by which you can reach Pluto's palace and come back again; and that path I will tell you. Listen carefully to all I say. Near to the city of Lacedæmon is a hill called Tænarus. In the hill is hidden a cavern which you must find; and from this cavern a path, which no mortal has yet trodden, runs straight into the hill. Take the path, but provide yourself first with these things: two pieces of barley-bread sopped in honey--one in each hand--and two pieces of money in your mouth. If anybody accosts you on the way, pass him by in silence. Give nothing to anybody with your hand. Show no pity. Help nobody. Taste nothing but dry bread, and open not the box you carry; for Venus knows you to be pitiful and helpful, and a little inquisitive as well, and will set traps for you to fall into. Therefore, be wise, and trust to nothing you see in the world of dreams and shadows. If you follow my directions, you may go and return in safety; if you fail in the least of them, you are a lost soul." Psyche set off at once to the city of Lacedæmon, and, with a honey-sop in each hand and two silver coins in her mouth, sought for the cavern in the hill. She found it at last, and started along the path, blacker than night, which wound downwards into the heart of the earth. After she had traveled many hours, the path became illuminated with a pale twilight, by which she could just manage to see--a strange sort of half-light, such as one never sees above ground. It seemed to Psyche as if the path would never end. At last she saw figures approaching her in the distance; and these, as they approached, proved to be a lame man driving a lame ass laden with wood, which was slipping from its cords. "Lady," said the lame man, "you see I am weak and helpless; help me to tie up my wood again so that it may not fall." Psyche was just about to lay down her honey-sops and help him, when she remembered the tower's warning, and passed him by without a word. On she went until she came to the bank of a broad river with water as black as ink; and just where the path ran down to the water was a ferry-boat, in which sat a very old man naked to the waist, and holding an oar. Psyche stepped into the boat, and the old man, in dead silence, pushed off, and began to row heavily across the black and sluggish stream. When the boat reached the middle, she looked down, and saw a skinny hand raise itself slowly out of the water. Then she perceived that the hand belonged to a corpse-like form floating half under the black ooze, which, in a hollow voice, thus besought her:-- "Lady, for pity's sake take me into your boat, that I may reach the other side. Else must I float here between life and death forever." Psyche was about to bid the ferryman take the poor, half-dead creature into the boat, when she remembered the tower's warning against pity, and let the body drift by.