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PROSERPINE--GLAUCUS AND SCYLLA
When Jupiter and his brothers had defeated the Titans and banished
them to Tartarus, a new enemy rose up against the gods. They were
the giants Typhon, Briareus, Enceladus, and others. Some of them
had a hundred arms, others breathed out fire. They were finally
subdued and buried alive under Mount Aetna, where they still
sometimes struggle to get loose, and shake the whole island with
earthquakes. Their breath comes up through the mountain, and is
what men call the eruption of the volcano.
The fall of these monsters shook the earth, so that Pluto was
alarmed, and feared that his kingdom would be laid open to the
light of day. Under this apprehension, he mounted his chariot,
drawn by black horses, and took a circuit of inspection to satisfy
himself of the extent of the damage. While he was thus engaged,
Venus, who was sitting on Mount Eryx playing with her boy Cupid,
espied him, and said, "My son, take your darts with which you
conquer all, even Jove himself, and send one into the breast of
yonder dark monarch, who rules the realm of Tartarus. Why should
he alone escape? Seize the opportunity to extend your empire and
mine. Do you not see that even in heaven some despise our power?
Minerva the wise, and Diana the huntress, defy us; and there is
that daughter of Ceres, who threatens to follow their example. Now
do you, if you have any regard for your own interest or mine, join
these two in one." The boy unbound his quiver, and selected his
sharpest and truest arrow; then straining the bow against his
knee, he attached the string, and, having made ready, shot the
arrow with its barbed point right into the heart of Pluto.
In the vale of Enna there is a lake embowered in woods, which
screen it from the fervid rays of the sun, while the moist ground
is covered with flowers, and Spring reigns perpetual. Here
Proserpine was playing with her companions, gathering lilies and
violets, and filling her basket and her apron with them, when
Pluto saw her, loved her, and carried her off. She screamed for
help to her mother and companions; and when in her fright she
dropped the corners of her apron and let the flowers fall,
childlike she felt the loss of them as an addition to her grief.
The ravisher urged on his steeds, calling them each by name, and
throwing loose over their heads and necks his iron-colored reins.
When he reached the River Cyane, and it opposed his passage, he
struck the river-bank with his trident, and the earth opened and
gave him a passage to Tartarus.
Ceres sought her daughter all the world over. Bright-haired
Aurora, when she came forth in the morning, and Hesperus when he
led out the stars in the evening, found her still busy in the
search. But it was all unavailing. At length, weary and sad, she
sat down upon a stone, and continued sitting nine days and nights,
in the open air, under the sunlight and moonlight and falling
showers. It was where now stands the city of Eleusis, then the
home of an old man named Celeus. He was out in the field,
gathering acorns and blackberries, and sticks for his fire. His
little girl was driving home their two goats, and as she passed
the goddess, who appeared in the guise of an old woman, she said
to her, "Mother,"--and the name was sweet to the ears of Ceres,--
"why do you sit here alone upon the rocks?" The old man also
stopped, though his load was heavy, and begged her to come into
his cottage, such as it was. She declined, and he urged her. "Go
in peace," she replied, "and be happy in your daughter; I have
lost mine." As she spoke, tears--or something like tears, for the
gods never weep--fell down her cheeks upon her bosom. The
compassionate old man and his child wept with her. Then said he,
"Come with us, and despise not our humble roof; so may your
daughter be restored to you in safety." "Lead on," said she, "I
cannot resist that appeal!" So she rose from the stone and went
with them. As they walked he told her that his only son, a little
boy, lay very sick, feverish, and sleepless. She stooped and
gathered some poppies. As they entered the cottage, they found all
in great distress, for the boy seemed past hope of recovery.
Metanira, his mother, received her kindly, and the goddess stooped
and kissed the lips of the sick child. Instantly the paleness left
his face, and healthy vigor returned to his body. The whole family
were delighted--that is, the father, mother, and little girl, for
they were all; they had no servants. They spread the table, and
put upon it curds and cream, apples, and honey in the comb. While
they ate, Ceres mingled poppy juice in the milk of the boy. When
night came and all was still, she arose, and taking the sleeping
boy, moulded his limbs with her hands, and uttered over him three
times a solemn charm, then went and laid him in the ashes. His
mother, who had been watching what her guest was doing, sprang
forward with a cry and snatched the child from the fire. Then
Ceres assumed her own form, and a divine splendor shone all
around. While they were overcome with astonishment, she said,
"Mother, you have been cruel in your fondness to your son. I would
have made him immortal, but you have frustrated my attempt.
Nevertheless, he shall be great and useful. He shall teach men the
use of the plough, and the rewards which labor can win from the
cultivated soil." So saying, she wrapped a cloud about her, and
mounting her chariot rode away.
Ceres continued her search for her daughter, passing from land to
land, and across seas and rivers, till at length she returned to
Sicily, whence she at first set out, and stood by the banks of the
River Cyane, where Pluto made himself a passage with his prize to
his own dominions. The river nymph would have told the goddess all
she had witnessed, but dared not, for fear of Pluto; so she only
ventured to take up the girdle which Proserpine had dropped in her
flight, and waft it to the feet of the mother. Ceres, seeing this,
was no longer in doubt of her loss, but she did not yet know the
cause, and laid the blame on the innocent land. "Ungrateful soil,"
said she, "which I have endowed with fertility and clothed with
herbage and nourishing grain, no more shall you enjoy my favors."
Then the cattle died, the plough broke in the furrow, the seed
failed to come up; there was too much sun, there was too much
rain; the birds stole the seeds--thistles and brambles were the
only growth. Seeing this, the fountain Arethusa interceded for the
land. "Goddess," said she, "blame not the land; it opened
unwillingly to yield a passage to your daughter. I can tell you of
her fate, for I have seen her. This is not my native country; I
came hither from Elis. I was a woodland nymph, and delighted in
the chase. They praised my beauty, but I cared nothing for it, and
rather boasted of my hunting exploits. One day I was returning
from the wood, heated with exercise, when I came to a stream
silently flowing, so clear that you might count the pebbles on the
bottom. The willows shaded it, and the grassy bank sloped down to
the water's edge. I approached, I touched the water with my foot.
I stepped in knee-deep, and not content with that, I laid my
garments on the willows and went in. While I sported in the water,
I heard an indistinct murmur coming up as out of the depths of the
stream: and made haste to escape to the nearest bank. The voice
said, 'Why do you fly, Arethusa? I am Alpheus, the god of this
stream.' I ran, he pursued; he was not more swift than I, but he
was stronger, and gained upon me, as my strength failed. At last,
exhausted, I cried for help to Diana. 'Help me, goddess! help your
votary!' The goddess heard, and wrapped me suddenly in a thick
cloud. The river god looked now this way and now that, and twice
came close to me, but could not find me. 'Arethusa! Arethusa!' he
cried. Oh, how I trembled,--like a lamb that hears the wolf
growling outside the fold. A cold sweat came over me, my hair
flowed down in streams; where my foot stood there was a pool. In
short, in less time than it takes to tell it I became a fountain.
But in this form Alpheus knew me and attempted to mingle his
stream with mine. Diana cleft the ground, and I, endeavoring to
escape him, plunged into the cavern, and through the bowels of the
earth came out here in Sicily. While I passed through the lower
parts of the earth, I saw your Proserpine. She was sad, but no
longer showing alarm in her countenance. Her look was such as
became a queen--the queen of Erebus; the powerful bride of the
monarch of the realms of the dead."
When Ceres heard this, she stood for a while like one stupefied;
then turned her chariot towards heaven, and hastened to present
herself before the throne of Jove. She told the story of her
bereavement, and implored Jupiter to interfere to procure the
restitution of her daughter. Jupiter consented on one condition,
namely, that Proserpine should not during her stay in the lower
world have taken any food; otherwise, the Fates forbade her
release. Accordingly, Mercury was sent, accompanied by Spring, to
demand Proserpine of Pluto. The wily monarch consented; but, alas!
the maiden had taken a pomegranate which Pluto offered her, and
had sucked the sweet pulp from a few of the seeds. This was enough
to prevent her complete release; but a compromise was made, by
which she was to pass half the time with her mother, and the rest
with her husband Pluto.
Ceres allowed herself to be pacified with this arrangement, and
restored the earth to her favor. Now she remembered Celeus and his
family, and her promise to his infant son Triptolemus. When the
boy grew up, she taught him the use of the plough, and how to sow
the seed. She took him in her chariot, drawn by winged dragons,
through all the countries of the earth, imparting to mankind
valuable grains, and the knowledge of agriculture. After his
return, Triptolemus built a magnificent temple to Ceres in
Eleusis, and established the worship of the goddess, under the
name of the Eleusinian mysteries, which, in the splendor and
solemnity of their observance, surpassed all other religious
celebrations among the Greeks.
There can be little doubt of this story of Ceres and Proserpine
being an allegory. Proserpine signifies the seed-corn which when
cast into the ground lies there concealed--that is, she is carried
off by the god of the underworld. It reappears--that is,
Proserpine is restored to her mother. Spring leads her back to the
light of day.
Milton alludes to the story of Proserpine in "Paradise Lost," Book
IV.:
". . . Not that fair field
Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world,--
... might with this Paradise
Of Eden strive."
Hood, in his "Ode to Melancholy," uses the same allusion very
beautifully:
"Forgive, if somewhile I forget,
In woe to come the present bliss;
As frighted Proserpine let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis."
The River Alpheus does in fact disappear underground, in part of
its course, finding its way through subterranean channels till it
again appears on the surface. It was said that the Sicilian
fountain Arethusa was the same stream, which, after passing under
the sea, came up again in Sicily. Hence the story ran that a cup
thrown into the Alpheus appeared again in Arethusa. It is this
fable of the underground course of Alpheus that Coleridge alludes
to in his poem of "Kubla Khan":
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."
In one of Moore's juvenile poems he thus alludes to the same
story, and to the practice of throwing garlands or other light
objects on his stream to be carried downward by it, and afterwards
reproduced at its emerging:
"O my beloved, how divinely sweet
Is the pure joy when kindred spirits meet!
Like him the river god, whose waters flow,
With love their only light, through caves below,
Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids
And festal rings, with which Olympic maids
Have decked his current, as an offering meet
To lay at Arethusa's shining feet.
Think, when he meets at last his fountain bride,
What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!
Each lost in each, till mingling into one,
Their lot the same for shadow or for sun,
A type of true love, to the deep they run."
The following extract from Moore's "Rhymes on the Road" gives an
account of a celebrated picture by Albano, at Milan, called a
Dance of Loves:
"'Tis for the theft ef Enna's flower from earth
These urchins celebrate their dance of mirth,
Round the green tree, like fays upon a heath;--
Those that are nearest linked in order bright,
Cheek after cheek, like rosebuds in a wreath;
And those more distant showing from beneath
The others' wings their little eyes of light.
While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother,
But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss,
This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother,
Who turns to greet the tidings with a kiss."
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