The nymphs filled their stream-urns and poured them over Psyche.
“Pour them all out! Pour them all out!” cried Psyche entreatingly. “But although my hair is dripping, and my wings and my limbs too, my lips are scorched, my poor forehead burns, and within me, O nymphs . . . .! within me, my soul is consumed as in hell-fire. . . .!”
The nymphs took her gently in their arms; they dived with her below, they came up again; they kept diving up and down.
“Oh, bathe me, bathe me!” cried Psyche imploringly. “Benevolent nymphs, bathe me! Some coolness still hangs about my body . . . . but my soul, oh, my soul you can never cool!” She wept, and the nymphs caught up her tears in mother-of-pearl shells.
“Are you collecting my tears? Oh, no, they are not worth it. Once I wept a brook full; once they were drunk, drunk by Love; once they were pearls, and Love crowned me with them! Now, now they are like drops of wine, drops of fire, and though they should congeal and become rubies or topazes, they may never crown me more. Henceforth my tears I shall always shed . . . . for Emeralda!”
