Eagerly Persephone
stretched out her hand to take this splendid prize, when the earth
opened, and a chariot stood before her, drawn by four coal-black
horses; and in the chariot there was a man with a dark and solemn
face, which looked as though he could never smile, and as though he
had never been happy. In a moment he got out of his chariot, seized
Persephone round the waist, and put her on the seat by his side. Then
he touched the horses with his whip, and they drew the chariot down
into the great gulf, and the earth closed over them again.

Presently the girls who had been playing with Persephone came up to
the place where the beautiful narcissus was growing; but they could
not see her anywhere. And they said, "Here is the very flower which
she ran to pick, and there is no place here where she can be hiding."
Still for a long time they searched through the fields of Enna; and
when the evening was come they went home to tell the lady Demeter that
they could not tell what had become of Persephone.

Very terrible was the sorrow of Demeter when she was told that her
child was lost. She put a dark robe on her shoulders, and took a
flaming torch in her hand, and went over land and sea to look for
Persephone. But no one could tell her where she was gone. When ten
days were passed she met Hekate, and asked her about her child; but
Hekate said, "I heard her voice, as she cried out when some one seized
her; but I did not see it with my eyes, and so I know not where she is
gone." Then she went to Helios, and said to him, "O Helios, tell me
about my child. Thou seest everything on the earth, sitting in the
bright sun." Then Helios said to Demeter, "I pity thee for thy great
sorrow, and I will tell thee the truth. It is Hades who has taken
away Persephone to be his wife in the dark and gloomy land which lies
beneath the earth."

[Illustration: CERES. (_or Demeter, from Pompeii Wall
Painting_)]

Then the rage of Demeter was more terrible than her sorrow had been;
and she would not stay in the palace of Zeus, on the great Thessalian
hill, because it was Zeus who had allowed Hades to take away
Persephone. So she went down from Olympos, and wandered on a long way
until she came to Eleusis, just as the sun was going down into his
golden cup behind the dark blue hills. There Demeter sat down close to
a fountain, where the water bubbled out from the green turf and fell
into a clear basin, over which some dark olive trees s