n
carried off by violence. She lighted a torch at Etna's burning
mountain, and for nine days and nine nights she went searching for her
through the darkened places of the earth.

Then, upon a high and a dark hill, the Goddess Demeter came face to
face with Hecate, the Moon. Hecate, too, had heard the cry of
Persephone; she had sorrow for Demeter's sorrow: she spoke to her as
the two stood upon that dark, high hill, and told her that she should
go to Helios for tidings--to bright Helios, the watcher for the gods,
and beg Helios to tell her who it was who had carried off by violence
her child Persephone.

Demeter came to Helios. He was standing before his shining steeds,
before the impatient steeds that draw the sun through the course of the
heavens. Demeter stood in the way of those impatient steeds; she begged
of Helios who sees all things upon the earth to tell her who it was had
carried off by violence, Persephone, her child.

And Helios, who may make no concealment, said: "Queenly Demeter, know
that the king of the Underworld, dark Aidoneus, has carried off
Persephone to make her his queen in the realm that I never shine upon."
He spoke, and as he did, his horses shook their manes and breathed out
fire, impatient to be gone. Helios sprang into his chariot and went
flashing away.

Demeter, knowing that one of the gods had carried off Persephone
against her will, and knowing that what was done had been done by the
will of Zeus, would go no more into the assemblies of the gods. She
quenched the torch that she had held in her hands for nine days and
nine nights; she put off her robe of goddess, and she went wandering
over the earth, uncomforted for the loss of her child. And no longer
did she appear as a gracious goddess to men; no longer did she give
them grain; no longer did she bless their fields. None of the things
that it had pleased her once to do would Demeter do any longer.

II

Persephone had been playing with the nymphs who are the daughters of
Ocean--Phaeno, Ianthe, Melita, Ianeira, Acast--in the lovely fields of
Enna. They went to gather flowers--irises and crocuses, lilies,
narcissus, hyacinths and roseblooms--that grow in those fields. As they
went, gathering flowers in their baskets, they had sight of Pergus, the
pool that the white swans come to sing in.

Beside a deep chasm that had been made in the earth a wonder flower was
growing--in color it was like the crocus, but it sent forth a perf