's minds to mark the boundaries where the
true and the possible must end, and all beyond be impossible and
absurd. The knowledge, therefore, that men derived from the
observation of such truths and such objects as were immediately
around them, passed by insensible gradations into the regions of fancy
and romance, and all was believed together. They saw lions and
elephants in the lands which were near, and which they knew; and they
believed in the centaurs, the mermaids, the hippogriffs, and the
dragons, which they imagined inhabiting regions more remote. They saw
heroes and chieftains in the plains and in the valleys below; and they
had no reason to disbelieve in the existence of gods and demi-gods
upon the summits of the blue and beautiful mountains above, where, for
aught they knew, there might lie boundless territories of verdure and
loveliness, wholly inaccessible to man. In the same manner, beneath
the earth somewhere, they knew not where, there lay, as they imagined,
extended regions destined to receive the spirits of the dead, with
approaches leading to it, through mysterious grottoes and caverns,
from above. Proserpina was the Goddess of Death, and the queen of
these lower abodes.

Various stories were told of her origin and history. The one most
characteristic and most minutely detailed is this:

She was the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres. She was very beautiful;
and, in order to protect her from the importunity of lovers, her
mother sent her, under the care of an attendant named Calligena, to a
cavern in Sicily, and concealed her there. The mouth of the cavern was
guarded by dragons. Pluto, who was the god of the inferior regions,
asked her of Jupiter, her father, for his wife. Jupiter consented, and
sent Venus to entice her out of her cavern, that Pluto might obtain
her. Venus, attended by Minerva and Diana, proceeded to the cavern
where Proserpina was concealed. The three goddesses contrived some
means to keep the dragons that guarded the cavern away, and then
easily persuaded the maiden to come out to take a walk. Proserpina was
charmed with the verdure and beauty which she found around her on the
surface of the ground, strongly contrasted as they were with the gloom
and desolation of her cavern. She was attended by nymphs and zephyrs
in her walk, and in their company she rambled along, admiring the
beauty and enjoying the fragrance of the flowers. Some of the flowers
which most attracted her attention wer