city of Eleusis, then the home of an old man named Celeus. He was out in the field,
gathering acorns and blackberries, and sticks for his fire. His little girl was driving
home their two goats, and as she passed the goddess, who appeared in the guise of
an old woman, she said to her, "Mother," - and the name was sweet to the ears of
Ceres, - "why do you sit here alone upon the rocks?" The old man also stopped,
though his load was heavy, and begged her to come into his cottage, such as it was.
She declined, and he urged her. "Go in peace," she replied, "and be happy in your
daughter; I have lost mine." As she spoke tears - or something like tears, for the gods
never weep, - fell down her cheeks upon her bosom. The compassionate old man and
his child wept with her. Then said he, "Come with us, and despise not our humble
roof; so may your daughter be restored to you in safety." "Lead on, said she, "I cannot
resist that appeal!" So she rose from the stone and went with them. As they walked he
told her that his only son, a little boy, lay very sick, feverish and sleepless. She
stooped and gathered some poppies. As they entered the cottage they found all in
great distress, for the boy seemed past hope of recovery Metanira, his mother,
received her kindly, and the goddess stooped and kissed the lips of the sick child.
Instantly the paleness left his face, and healthy vigor returned to his body. The whole
family were delighted - that is, the father, mother, and little girl, for they were all; they
had no servants. They spread the table, and put upon it curds and cream, apples, and
honey in the comb. While they ate, Ceres mingled poppy juice in the milk of the boy.
When night came and all was still, she arose, and taking the sleeping boy, moulded his
limbs with her hands, and uttered over him three times a solemn charm, then went and
laid him in the ashes. His mother, who had been watching what her guest was doing,
sprang forward with a cry and snatched the child from the fire. Then Ceres assumed
her own form, and a divine splendor shone all around. While they were overcome with
astonishment, she said, "Mother, you have been cruel in your fondness to your son. I
would have made him immortal, but you have frustrated my attempt. Nevertheless, he
shall be great and useful. He shall teach men the use of the plough, and the rewards
which labor can win from the cultivated soil." So saying, she wrapped a cloud about
her, and mounting her chariot rode away.
Ceres continued her search for her daughter, passing from land to land, and
across seas and rivers, till at length she returned to Sicily, whence she at first set out,
and stood by the banks of the River Cyane, where Pluto made himself a passage with
his prize to his own dominions. The river nymph would have told the goddess all she
had witnessed, but dared not, for fear of Pluto; so she only ventured to take up the
girdle which Proserpine had dropped in her flight, and waft it to the feet of the mother.
Ceres, seeing this, was no longer in doubt of her loss, but she did not yet know the
cause, and laid the blame on the innocent land. "Ungrateful soil," said she, "which I
have endowed with fertility and clothed with herbage and nourishing grain, no more
shall you enjoy my favors." Then the cattle died, the plough broke in the furrow, the
seed failed to come up; there was too much sun, there was too much rain; the birds
stole the seeds, - thistles and brambles were the only growth. Seeing this, the fountain
Arethusa interceded for the land. "Goddess," said she, "blame not the land; it opened
unwillingly to yield a passage to your daughter. I can tell you of her fate, for I have
seen her. This is not my native country; I came hither from Elis. I was a woodland
nymph, and delighted in the chase. They praised my beauty, but I cared nothing for it,
and rather boasted of my hunting exploits. One day I was returning from the wood,
heated with exercise, when I came to a stream silently flowing, so clear that you might
count the pebbles on the bottom. The willows shaded it, and the grassy bank sloped
down to the water's edge. I approached, I touched the water with my foot. I stepped in
knee-deep, and not content with that, I laid my garments on the willows and went in.
While I sported in the water, I heard an indistinct murmur coming up as out of the
depths of the stream; and made haste to escape to the nearest bank. The voice said,
"Why do you fly, Arethusa? I am Alpheus, the god of this stream." I ran, he pursued;
he was not more swift than I, but he was stronger, and gained upon me, as my
strength failed. At last, exhausted, I cried for help to Diana. 'Help me, goddess! help
your votary!' The goddess heard, and wrapped me suddenly in a thick cloud. The river
god looked now this way and now that, and twice came close to me, but could not find
me. 'Arethusa! Aresthusa!' he cried. O, how I trembled, - like a lamb that hears the
wolf growling outside the fold. A cold sweat came over me, my hair flowed down in
streams; where my foot stood there was a pool. In short, in less time than it takes to
tell it I became a fountain. But in this form Alpheus knew me, and attempted to mingle
his stream with mine. Diana cleft the ground, and I, endeavoring to escape him,
plunged into the cavern, and through the bowels of the earth came out here in Sicily.
While I passed through the lower parts of the earth, I saw your Proserpine. She was
sad, but no longer showing alarm in her countenance. Her look was such as became
a queen, - the queen of Erebus; the powerful bride of the monarch of the realms of the
dead."
When Ceres heard this, she stood for a while like one stupefied; then turned her
chariot towards heaven, and hastened to present herself before the throne of Jove.
She told the story of her bereavement, and implored Jupiter to interfere to procure the
restitution of her daughter. Jupiter consented on one condition, namely, that
Proserpine should not during her stay in the lower world have taken any food;
otherwise, the Fates forbade her release. Accordingly, Mercury was sent,
accompanied by Spring, to demand Proserpine of Pluto. The wily monarch consented;
but alas! the maiden had taken a pomegranate which Pluto offered her, and had
sucked the sweet pulp from a few of the seeds. This was enough to prevent her
complete release; but a compromise was made, by which she was to pass half the
time with her mother, and the rest with her husband Pluto.
Ceres allowed herself to be pacified with this arrangement, and restored the
earth to her favor. Now she remembered Celeus and his family, and her promise to
his infant son Triptolemus. When the boy grew up, she taught him the use of the
plough, and how to sow the seed. She took him in her chariot, drawn by winged
dragons, through all the countries of the earth, imparting to mankind valuable grains,
and the knowledge of agriculture. After his return, Triptolemus built a magnificent
temple to Ceres in Eleusis, and established the worship of the goddess, under the
name of the Eleusinian mysteries, which, in the splendor and solemnity of their
observance, surpassed all other religious celebrations among the Greeks.
There can be little doubt of this story of Ceres and Proserpine being an allegory.
; Proserpine signifies the seed-corn which when cast into the ground lies there
concealed, - that is, she is carried off by the god of the underworld; it reappears, - that
is, Proserpine is restored to her mother. Spring leads her back to the light of day.
Milton alludes to the story of Proserpine in Paradise Lost, Book IV: -
". . . Not that fair field
Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world, -
. . . might with this Paradise
Of Eden strive."
Hood, in his Ode to Melancholy, uses the same allusion very beautifully:
"Forgive, if somewhile I forget,
In woe to come the present bliss;
As frighted Proserpine let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis."
The River Alpheus does in fact disappear underground, in part of its course,
finding its way through subterranean channels, till it again appears on the surface. - It
was said that the Sicilian fountain Arethusa was the same stream, which, after passing
under the sea, came up again in Sicily. Hence the story ran that a cup thrown into the
Alpheus appeared again in Arethusa. It is this fable of the underground course of
Alpheus that Coleridge alludes to in his poem of Kubla Khan: -
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."
In one of Moore's juvenile poems he thus alludes the same story, and to the
practice of throwing garlands or other light objects on his stream to be carried downward
by it, and afterwards reproduced at its emerging: -
"O my beloved, how divinely sweet
Is the pure joy when kindred spirits meet!
Like him the river god, whose waters flow,
With love their only light, through caves below,
Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids
And festal rings, with which Olympic maids
Have decked his current, as an offering meet
To lay at Arethusa's shining feet.
Think, when he meets at last his fountain bride,
What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!
Each lost in each, till mingling into one,
Their lot the same for shadow or for sun.
A type of true love, to the deep they run."
The following extract from Moore's Rhymes on the Road gives an account of a
celebrated picture by Albano at Milan, called a Dance of Loves: -
"'Tis for the theft of Enna's flower from earth
These urchins celebrate their dance of mirth,
Round the green tree, like fays upon a heath -
Those that are nearest linked in order bright,
Cheek after cheek, like rosebuds in a wreath;
And those more distant showing from beneath
The others' wings their little eyes of light.
While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother,
But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss,
This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother,
Who turns to greet the tidings with a kiss."
Glaucus And Scylla.
Glaucus was a fisherman. One day he had drawn his nets to land, and had
taken a great many fishes of various kinds. So he emptied his net, and proceeded to
sort the fishes on the grass. The place where he stood was a beautiful island in the
river, a solitary spot, uninhabited, and not used for pasturage of cattle, nor ever visited
by any but himself. On a sudden, the fishes, which had been laid on the grass, began to
revive and move their fins as if they were in the water; and while he looked on
astonished, they one and all moved off to the water, plunged in and swam away. He did
not know what to make of this, whether some god had done it, or some secret power in
the herbage. "What herb has such a power?" he exclaimed; and gathering some of it,
he tasted it. Scarce had the juices of the plant reached his palate when he found himself
agitated with a longing desire for the water He could no longer restrain himself, but
bidding farewell to earth, he plunged into the stream. The gods of the water received
him graciously, and admitted him to the honor of their society. They obtained the
consent of Oceanus and Tethys, the sovereigns of the sea, that all that was mortal in
him should be washed away. A hundred rivers poured their waters over him. Then he
lost all sense of his former nature and all consciousness. When he recovered, he found
himself changed in form and mind. His hair was sea-green, and trailed behind him on
the water; his shoulders grew broad, and what had been thighs and legs assumed the
form of a fish's tail. The sea-gods complimented him on the change of his appearance,
and he fancied himself rather a good-looking personage.
One day Glaucus saw the beautiful maiden Scylla, the favorite of the water-
nymphs, rambling on the shore, and when she had found a sheltered nook, laving her
limbs in the clear water. He fell in love with her, and showing himself on the surface,
spoke to her, saying such things as he thought most likely to win her to stay; for she
turned to run immediately on the sight of him, and ran till she had gained a cliff
overlooking the sea. Here she stopped and turned round to see whether it was a god or
a sea animal, and observed with wonder his shape and color. Glaucus partly emerging
from the water, and supporting himself against a rock, said, "Maiden, I am no monster,
nor a sea animal, but a god; and neither Proteus nor Triton ranks higher than I. Once I
was a mortal, and followed the sea for a living; but now I belong wholly to it." Then he
told the story of his metamorphosis, and how he had been promoted to his present
dignity, and added, "But what avails all this if it fails to move your heart?" He was going
on in this strain, but Scylla turned and hastened away.
Glaucus was in despair, but it occurred to him to consult the enchantress, Circe.
Accordingly he repaired to her island, - the same where afterwards Ulysses landed, as
we shall see in one of our later stories. After mutual salutations, he said, "Goddess, I
entreat your pity; you alone can relieve the pain I suffer. The power of herbs I know as
well as any one, for it is to them I owe my change of form. I love Scylla. I am ashamed
to tell you how I have sued and promised to her, and how scornfully she has treated me.
I beseech you to use your incantations, or potent herbs, if they are more prevailing, not
to cure me of my love, - for that I do not wish, - but to make her share it and yield me a
like return." To which Circe replied, for she was not insensible to the attractions of the
sea-green deity, "You had better pursue a willing object; you are worthy to be sought,
instead of having to seek in vain. Be not diffident, know your own worth. I protest to you
that even I, goddess though I be, and learned in the virtues of plants and spells, should
not know how to refuse you. If she scorns you, scorn her; meet one who is ready to
meet you half way, and thus make a due return to both at once." To these words
Glaucus replied, "Sooner shall trees grow at the bottom of the ocean, and seaweed on
the top of the mountains, than I will cease to love Scylla, and her alone."
The goddess was indignant, but she could not punish him, neither did she wish to
do so, for she liked him too well; so she turned all her wrath against her rival, poor
Scylla. She took plants of poisonous powers and mixed them together, with incantations
and charms. Then she passed through the crowd of gambolling beasts, the victims of
her art, and proceeded to the coast of Sicily, where Scylla lived. There was a little bay
on the shore to which Scylla used to resort, in the heat of the day, to breathe the air of
the sea, and to bathe in its waters. Here the goddess poured her poisonous mixture,
and muttered over it incantations of mighty power. Scylla came as usual and plunged
into the water up to her waist. What was her horror to perceive a brood of serpents and
barking monsters surrounding her! At first she could not imagine hey were a part of
herself, and tried to run from them, and to drive them away; but as she ran she carried
them with her, and when she tried to touch her limbs, she found her hands touch only
the yawning jaws of monsters. Scylla remained rooted to the spot. Her temper grew as
ugly as her form, and she took pleasure in devouring hapless mariners who came within
her grasp. Thus she destroyed six of the companions of Ulysses, and tried to wreck the
ships of Aeneas, till at last she was turned into a rock, and as such still continues to be a
terror to mariners.
Keats, in his Endymion, has given a new version of the ending of "Glaucus and
Scylla" - Glaucus consents to Circe's blandishments, till he by chance is witness to her
transactions with her beasts. ^* Disgusted with her treachery and cruelty, he tries to
escape from her, but is taken and brought back, when with reproaches she banishes
him, sentencing him to pass a thousand years in decrepitude and pain. He returns to
the sea, and there finds the body of Scylla, whom the goddess has not transformed but
drowned. Glaucus learns that his destiny is that, if he passes his thousand years in
collecting all the bodies of drowned lovers, a youth beloved of the gods will appear and
Age of Fable or Beauties of Mythology Page 8