PSY. But small is the fear that a monster like you inspires, and if it has any venom, a soul has little reason to venture on the least complaint against a pleasing poison, the cure of which all the heart would dread! Scarce do I behold you than already my calmed fears suffer the image of death to vanish; and I feel I know not what unknown fire flow through my frozen veins: Esteem I have felt, and kindness, friendship, gratitude; compassion's innocent sorrows have made me know its power, but I have not yet felt what I now feel. I know not what it is, but I know that it fills me with delight, and causes me no alarm. The longer I gaze on you, the more I feel the spell. Nothing that I have ever felt had the same effect; and I would tell you, my Lord, that I love you, did I know what love is. Turn them not away, those eyes that poison me, those eyes so tender, so piercing, yet so loving, that look as if they shared the confusion they cause me. Alas! the more dangerous they prove, the more fondly I cling to them. What decree of heaven is it which I cannot understand, that forces me to tell you more than I should? I, whose modesty ought at least to wait that you explain the confusion that, I see, is within you. You sigh, my Lord, as I sigh; your senses, like mine, seem amazed. 'Tis my duty to be silent concerning this, yours to speak it, yet it is I who tell this to you. LOVE. Your heart, Psyche, has ever been too insensible, and you must not wonder if, to repair the insult, Love now pays himself with usury for that which your soul ought to have granted him. The time is come in which your lips must breathe those sighs so long restrained; and while it draws you from that fierce humour, an endless rapture, as sweet as it is unknown, must wound you as deeply as it ought to have wounded you during those golden days the course of which your unfeeling soul has profaned. PSY. Not to love is, then, a great crime? LOVE. Do you suffer a hard punishment for it? PSY. The punishment is mild indeed. LOVE. The penalty is suited to the offence; and Love, on this glorious day, avenges himself of lack of love by an excess of love. PSY. Would I had been punished before! My life's happiness lies in it. I ought to blush at it, or to whisper it low, but this torture has too many charms. Suffer me to say, and to repeat it aloud; though I said it a hundred times, I would never blush for it. It is not I who speak; and the wonderful empire, the amiable violence of your presence, sway my voice as soon as I begin to speak. Vainly does my modesty take secret offence at it; vainly would my sex and decency bind me to other laws; it is your eyes that dictate my answer, and my lips, the slaves of their almighty power, no longer consult me on the self-respect I owe myself.