Yet as a helmsman, at the word to tack, Swiftly without a thought puts down his helm, So Psyche turn’d to tread that desert black, Since was no fear that coud her heart o’erwhelm; Nor knew she that she went the fount to seek Of cold Cocytus, springing to the peak, Secretly from his source in Pluto’s realm.
All night and day she journey’d, and at last Come to the rock gazed up in vain around: Nothing she saw but precipices vast O’er ruined scarps, with rugged ridges crown’d: And creeping to a cleft to rest in shade, Or e’er the desperate venture she assay’d, She fell asleep upon the stony ground.
A dream came to her, thus: she stood alone Within her palace in the high ravine; Where nought but she was changed, but she to stone. Worshippers throng’d the court, and still were seen Folk flying from the peak, who, ever more Flying and flying, lighted on the floor, _Hail!_ cried they, _wife of Eros, adorèd queen!_
A hurtling of the battl’d air disturb’d Her sunken sense, and waked her eyes to meet The kingly bird of Zeus, himself that curb’d His swooping course, alighting at her feet; With motion gentle, his far-darting eye In kindness dim’d upon her, he drew nigh, And thus in words unveil’d her foe’s deceit:
‘In vain, poor Psyche, hast thou hither striven Across the fiery plain toiling so well; Cruelly to destruction art thou driven By her, whose hate thou canst not quit nor quell. No mortal foot may scale this horrid mount, And those black waters of its topmost fount Are guarded by the hornèd snakes of hell.
‘Its little rill is an upleaping jet Of cold Cocytus, which for ever licks Earth’s base, and when with Acheron ’tis met, Its waters with that other cannot mix, Which holds the elemental air dissolved; But with it in its ceaseless course revolved Issues unmingl’d in the lake of Styx.
‘The souls of murderers, in guise of fish, Scream as they swim therein and wail for cold, Their times of woe determined by the wish Of them they murder’d on the earth of old: Whom each five years they see, whene’er they make Their passage to the Acherusian lake, And there release may win from pains condoled.
‘For if the pitying ear of them they slew Be haply piercèd by their voices spare, Then are they freed from pain; as are some few; But, for the most, again they forward fare To Tartarus obscene, and outcast thence Are hurried back into the cold intense, And with new company their torments share.