Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/165

 his sheath, and laughing gleefully, shot the gloomy monarch in the heart.

Ceres, in the meantime, nearly frantic with grief, searched over land and sea for her lost daughter, and when night fell, so that her search might not be hindered, she tore up young pine trees by the roots and dipped them in the fires of Mount Etna. She could not eat, saying (as Tennyson puts it) that the "nectar smack'd of hemlock" and the "rich ambrosia tasted aconite," while ancient poets claim that neither Aurora, the Dawn, nor Hesperus, the Evening Star, ever saw her rest. Yet unweakened by fatigue and lack of sustenance, the goddess turned to the earth and forbade it to bear until Proserpine was returned to her.

When Ceres discovered that the King of the somber, joyless region under the ground had carried off Proserpine and made her the Queen of his Shades, she left the home of the gods in anger and went to live among mankind. Jupiter at last becoming fearful for the fate of man if earth no longer bore fruit or grain, sent Mercury down to inquire of Pluto if there was any hope of Proserpine's return. The Fates sent reply that if Proserpine had not tasted the pomegranate, the food of death, she could not be detained, otherwise she must remain forever. Ascalaphus then stepped forward and said that he had seen the Queen eat some of the seeds of this fruit,—for which tattling he was turned into a screech owl. Jupiter, pitying Ceres in her disappointment, succeeded in effecting a compromise by inducing his brother to allow Proserpine to spend six months of every year with her mother. This, the Greeks say, is the cause of summer and winter.

When Proserpine appears, Ceres commands the seeds, also, to force their way above the ground, the orchards become bright with a wealth of blossoms and the fields fresh with sprouts and vines. Ceres then is happy and the world a busy, beautiful place in which to live, but when Proserpine leaves, she cares not what