CERES AND PROSERPINE

THE MOURNING OF THE EARTH-MOTHER 

In the island of Sicily, high up among the  mountains, there was once a beautiful valley, called  the valley of Enna. It was seldom that a human being,  even a shepherd, climbed so high; but the goats, being  able to climb by the steepest and most slippery paths,  over the roughest rocks, knew well what soft , sweet  grass grew there. Sheep, too, and sometimes wild swine,  found their way to this spot.  

Not another mountain valley anywhere was quite  like this one. It was never visited by any of the winds  except Zephyrus, who was always mild and gentle. The  grass was always green and the flowers were always in  bloom. Th ere were shady groves on every side, and  numberless fountains of sparkling water. It would have  been hard to fi nd a pleasanter spot.  

Th is valley of Enna was the home of Ceres, the  Earth-mother, one of the wisest of the goddesses. In  fact, the valley owed its beauty to the presence of Ceres, 

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and the wonderful vegetation which covered the whole  island of Sicily was due to her infl uence; for she was the  goddess of all that grows out of the earth, and knew the  secret of the springing wheat and the ripening fruits.  She watched over the fl owers, the lambs in the fi elds,  and the young children. Th e springs of water, too, which  came from hidden places of the earth, were hers.  

One day Proserpine, the little daughter of Ceres,  was playing in the meadows of Enna. Her hair was as  yellow as gold, and her cheeks had the delicate pink of  an apple blossom. She seemed like a fl ower among the  other flowers of the valley.  

She, and the daughters of the valley-nymphs,  who were children of about her own age, had taken off  their sandals and were running about on the soft grass  in their bare feet. Th ey were as light-hearted as the little  lambs and kids. Soon they began to gather the fl owers  that grew so thick on every side—violets, hyacinths,  

lilies, and big purple irises. Th ey fi lled their baskets,  and then their dresses, and twisted long sprays of wild  roses around their shoulders.  

Suddenly, Proserpine saw a fl ower which made  her forget everything else. Th is fl ower seemed to be  a strange, new kind of narcissus. It was of gigantic  size, and its one fl ower-stalk held at least a hundred  blossoms. Its fragrance was so powerful that it fi lled the  entire island, and might be noticed even out at sea.  

Proserpine called to her playmates to come and  see this wonderful fl ower, and then she noticed, for  the fi rst time, that she was alone; for she had wandered 

from one fl ower to another till she had left the other  children far behind. Running quickly forward to pick  this strange blossom, she saw that its stalk was spotted  like a snake, and feared that it might be poisonous. Still,  it was far too beautiful a fl ower to be left by itself in the  meadow, and she therefore tried to pluck it. When she  found that she could not break the stalk, she made a  great eff ort to pull the whole plant up by the roots.  

All at once, the black soil around the plant  loosened, and Proserpine heard a rumbling underneath  the ground. Th en the earth suddenly opened, a great  black cavern appeared, and out from its depths sprang  four magnifi cent black horses, drawing a golden chariot.  In the chariot sat a king with a crown on his head, but  under the crown was the gloomiest face ever seen.  

When this strange king saw Proserpine standing  there by the fl ower, too frightened to run away, he  checked his horses for an instant and, bending forward,  snatched the poor child from the ground and placed her  on the seat by his side. Then he whipped up his horses  and drove away at a furious rate.  

Proserpine, still holding fast to her flowers,  screamed for her mother.  

Helios, the sun-god, saw how the gloomy-faced  king had stolen Proserpine away, and Hecate, who sat  near by in her cave, heard the scream and the sound  of wheels. No one else had any suspicion of what had  happened.  

Ceres was far away across the seas in another  country, overlooking the gathering in of the harvests. 

She heard Proserpine’s scream, and like a sea-bird when  it hears the distressed cry of its young, came rushing  home across the water.  

She fi lled the valley with the sound of her  calling, but no one answered to the name of Proserpine.  Th e strange fl ower had disappeared. A few roses lay  scattered on the grass, and near them were a child’s  footprints. Ceres felt sure that these were the traces of  Proserpine’s little bare feet, but she could not follow  them far, because a herd of swine had wandered that  way and left a confusion of hoofprints behind them.  

Ceres could learn nothing about her daughter  from the nymphs. She sent out her own messenger, the  big white crane that brings the rain; but although he  could fly very swiftly and very far on his strong wings,  he brought back no news of Proserpine.  

When it grew dark, the goddess lighted two  torches at the flaming summit of Mount Ætna, and  continued her search. She wandered up and down for  nine days and nine nights. On the tenth night, when  it was nearly morning, she met Hecate, who was  carrying a light in her hand, as if she, too, were looking  for something. Hecate told Ceres how she had heard  Proserpine scream, and had heard the sound of wheels,  but had seen nothing. Th en she went with the goddess  to ask Helios, the sun-god, whether he had not seen  what happened that day, for the sun-god travels around  the whole world, and must see everything.  

Ceres found Helios sitting in his chariot, ready  to drive his horses across the sky. He held the fi ery 

creatures in for a moment, while he told Ceres that  Pluto, the king of the underworld, had stolen her  daughter and had carried her away to live with him in  his dark palace.  

When Ceres heard this, she knew that Proserpine  was lost to her, and she kept away from the other gods  and hid herself in the dark places of the earth. She liked  to keep away from the earth’s people as well as from the  gods, for wherever she went, she was sure to see some  happy mother with her children around her, and the  sight made her feel very lonely. She sometimes envied  the poorest peasants, or even the little bird-mothers  in the trees.  

One day she sat down by the side of the road,  near a well, in the shade of an olive tree. While she was  sitting there, the four daughters of Celeus, carrying  golden pitchers on their shoulders, came down from  their father’s palace to draw water. Seeing a sad old  woman sitting by the well, they spoke to her in a kindly  way. Not wishing them to know that she was a goddess,  Ceres told the four young princesses that she had been  carried away from her home by pirates, and had escaped  from being sold for a slave by running away the instant  that the pirate’s ship reached the shore.  

“I am old, and a stranger to every one here,” she  said, “but I am not too old to work for my bread. I could  keep house, or take care of a young child.”  

Hearing this, the four sisters ran eagerly back to  the palace, and asked permission to bring the strange  woman home with them. Th eir mother told them that 

they might engage her as nurse for their little brother,  Demophoon.  

Therefore Ceres became an inmate of the  house of Celeus, and the little Demophoon flourished  wonderfully under her care.  

Ceres soon learned to love the human baby who  was her charge, and she wished to make him immortal.  She knew only one way of doing this, and that was to  bathe him with ambrosia, and then, one night aft er  another, place him in the fi re until his mortal parts  should be burned away. Every night she did this,  without saying a word to any one. Under this treatment  Demophoon was growing wonderfully godlike; but one  night, his mother being awake very late, and hearing  some one moving about, drew the curtains aside a  very little, and peeped out. There, before the fi re-place,  where a great fi re was burning, stood the strange nurse,  with Demophoon in her arms. The mother watched in  silence until she saw Ceres place the child in the fire,  then she gave a shriek of alarm.  

The shriek broke the spell. Ceres took Demophoon  from the fire and laid him on the floor. Then she told the  trembling mother that she had meant to make her child  immortal, but that now this could not be. He would have  to grow old and die like other mortals. Then, throwing  off her blue hood, she suddenly lost her aged appearance,  and all at once looked very grand and beautiful. Her  hair, which fell down over her shoulders, was yellow,  like the ripe grain in the fi elds. Demophoon’s mother  knew by these signs that her child’s nurse must be the 

great Ceres, but she saw her no more, for the goddess  went out into the dark night.  

After this Ceres continued her lonely wandering,  not caring where she went. One day, as she stooped to  drink from a spring, Abas, a freckled boy who stood near,  mocked her because she looked sad and old. Suddenly  he saw Ceres stand up very straight, with a look that  frightened him. Then he felt himself growing smaller  and smaller, until he shrunk into a little speckled water newt, when he made haste to hide himself away under  a stone.  

Unlike Abas, most of the people whom Ceres met  with felt sorry for her. One day, while she was sitting  on a stone by the side of a mountain road in Greece,  feeling very sorrowful, she heard a childish voice say,  “Mother, are you not afraid to stay all alone here on the  mountain?”  

Ceres looked up, pleased to hear the word  “mother,” and saw a little peasant girl, standing near  two goats that she had driven down from the mountain pastures.  

“No, my child,” said she, “I am not afraid.”  

Just then, out from among the trees came the  little girl’s father, carrying a bundle of fi rewood on his  shoulder. He invited Ceres to come to his cottage for  the night. Ceres at fi rst refused, but fi nally accepted  the invitation.  

“You are happier than I,” said Ceres, as the 

three walked toward the cottage. “You have your little  daughter with you, but I have lost mine.”  

“Alas! I have sorrow enough,” said the peasant.  “I fear that my only son, little Triptolemus, lies dying  at home.”  

“Let us hope that he may yet be cured,” said Ceres,  and stooping, she gathered a handful of poppies.  

Soon they came into the little cottage, where  they found the mother beside herself with grief for  her boy.  

Ceres bent over the child and kissed him softly  on both cheeks. As she did so, the poppies in her hands  brushed lightly against his face. Then his groans ceased,  and the child fell into a quiet sleep.  

In the morning Triptolemus woke strong and  well; and when Ceres called her winged dragons and  drove away through the clouds, she left a happy and  grateful family behind her.  

II 

THE RETURN OF PROSERPINE 

All this time, while Ceres had been mourning for  her lost Proserpine, she had neglected to look after the  little seeds that lay in the brown earth. The consequence  was that these little seeds could not sprout and grow;  therefore there was no grain to be ground into flour for  bread. Not only the seeds, but all growing things missed  the care of Mother Ceres. The grass turned brown and 

withered away, the trees in the olive orchards dropped  their leaves, and the little birds all flew away to a distant  country. Even the sheep that fed among the water springs in the valley of Enna grew so thin that it was  pitiful to see them.  

Jupiter saw that without Ceres, the Great Mother,  there could be no life on the earth. In time, all men and  animals would die for lack of food. He therefore told  Iris to set up her rainbow-bridge in the sky, and to go  quickly down to the dark cave where Ceres mourned  for Proserpine, that she might persuade the goddess to  forget her sorrow, and go back to the fields, where she  was so much needed.  

Iris found Ceres sitting in a corner of her cave,  among the shadows, wrapped in dark blue draperies that  made her almost invisible. The coming of Iris lighted up  every part of the cave and set beautiful colors dancing  everywhere, but it did not make Ceres smile.  

After this, Jupiter sent the gods, one after another,  down to the cave; but none of them could comfort the  Earth-mother. She still mourned.  

Then Jupiter sent Mercury down into Pluto’s  kingdom, to see whether he could not persuade that  grim king to let Proserpine return to her mother.  

When Mercury told his errand to King Pluto,  Proserpine jumped up from her throne, all eagerness  to see her mother again, and Pluto, seeing how glad  she was, could not withhold his consent. So he ordered  the black horses and the golden chariot brought out  to take her back; but before she sprang to the chariot’s 

seat, he craftily asked her if she would not eat one of  the pomegranates that grew in his garden.  

Proserpine tasted the fruit, taking just four  seeds. Th en the black horses swiftly carried Mercury  and herself into the upper world, and straight to the  cave where Ceres sat.  

What a change! How quickly Ceres ran out of  the cave, when she heard her daughter’s voice! No more  mourning in shadowy places for her, now!  

Proserpine told her mother everything—how  she had found the wonderful narcissus, how the earth  had opened, allowing King Pluto’s horses to spring out,  and how the dark king had snatched her and carried  her away.  

“But, my dear child,” Ceres anxiously inquired,  “have you eaten anything since you have been in the  underworld?”  

Proserpine confessed that she had eaten the four  pomegranate seeds. At that, Ceres beat her breast in  despair, and then once more appealed to Jupiter. He  said that Proserpine should spend eight months of  every year with her mother, but would have to pass  the other four—one for each pomegranate seed—in  the underworld with Pluto.  

So Ceres went back to her beautiful valley of  Enna, and to her work in the fields. The little brown  seeds that had lain asleep so long sprouted up and grew;  the fountains sent up their waters; the brown grass on  the hills became green; the olive trees and the grape-

vines put out new leaves; the lambs and the kids throve,  and skipped about more gayly than ever; and all the  hosts of little birds came back with the crane of Ceres  to lead them.  

During the eight months that Proserpine was  with her, Ceres went about again among her peasants,  standing near the men while they were threshing the  grain, helping the women to bake their bread, and  having a care over everything that went on. She did not  forget the peasant family of Greece, in whose cottage she  had been invited to pass the night, and where she had  cured little Triptolemus. She visited this family again  and taught the young Triptolemus how to plough, to  sow, and to reap, like the peasants of her own Sicily.  

The time came when Proserpine was obliged to  go back to King Pluto. Then Ceres went and sat among  the shadows in the cave, as she had done before.  

All nature slept for a while; but the peasants had  no fear now, for they knew that Proserpine would surely  come back, and that the great Earth-mother would then  care for her children again.