process of time, Ceres, having become enrolled among the Divinities
of Greece, her worship became confounded with that of Isis.

It is very possible that the story of the transformation of Stellio
into a newt may have had no other foundation than the Poet's fancy.

FABLE V.
[V. 462-563]

Ceres proceeds in a fruitless search for her daughter over the whole
earth, until the Nymph Arethusa acquaints her with the place of her
ravisher's abode. The Goddess makes her complaint to Jupiter, and
obtains his consent for her daughter's return to the upper world,
provided she has not eaten anything since her arrival in Pluto's
dominions. Ascalaphus, however, having informed that she has eaten
some seeds of a pomegranate, Ceres is disappointed, and Proserpine, in
her wrath, metamorphoses the informer into an owl. The Sirens have
wings given them by the Gods, to enable them to be more expeditious in
seeking for Proserpine. Jupiter, to console Ceres for her loss,
decides that her daughter shall remain six months each year with her
mother upon earth, and the other six with her husband, in the Infernal
Regions.

"It were a tedious task[59] to relate through what lands and what seas
the Goddess wandered; for her search the world was too limited. She
returns to Sicily; and while, in her passage, she views all {places},
she comes, too, to Cyane; she, had she not been transformed, would have
told her everything. But both mouth and tongue were wanting to her,
{thus} desirous to tell, and she had no means whereby to speak. Still,
she gave unmistakable tokens, and pointed out, on the top of the water,
the girdle[60] of Proserpine, well known to her parent, which by chance
had fallen off in that place into the sacred stream.

"Soon as she recognized this, as if then, at last, she fully understood
that her daughter had been carried away[61] the Goddess tore her
unadorned hair, and struck her breast again and again with her hands.
Not as yet does she know where she is, yet she exclaims against all
countries, and calls them ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of
corn; {and} Trinacria before {all} others, in which she has found the
proofs of her loss. Wherefore, with vengeful hand, she there broke the
ploughs that were turning up the clods, and, in her anger, consigned to
a similar death both the husbandmen and the oxen that cultivated the
fields, and ordered the land to deny a return of what had been depo