The Golden Fleece and The Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles - The Original Classic Edition. Padraic Colum
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 [pg 63] 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, Acaste--in the
lovely fields of Enna. They went to gather flowers--irises and crocuses, lilies, narcissus, hyacinths and rose-blooms--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 perfume that was like the perfume of a hundred flowers. And Persephone thought as she went toward it that having gathered
that flower she would have something much more wonderful than her companions had.
She did not know that Aidoneus, the lord of the Underworld, had caused that flower to grow there so that she might be drawn by
it to the chasm that he had made.
As Persephone stooped to pluck the wonder flower, Aidoneus, [pg 64] in his chariot of iron, dashed up through the chasm, and
grasping the maiden by the waist, set her beside him. Only Cyane, the nymph, tried to save Persephone, and it was then that she caught the girdle in her hands.
The maiden cried out, first because her flowers had been spilled, and then because she was being reft away. She cried out to her
mother, and her cry went over high mountains and sounded up from the sea. The daughters of Ocean, affrighted, fled and sank
down into the depths of the sea.
In his great chariot of iron that was drawn by black steeds Aidoneus rushed down through the chasm he had made. Into the Un-
derworld he went, and he dashed across the River Styx, and he brought his chariot up beside his throne. And on his dark throne he
seated Persephone, the fainting daughter of Demeter. III
No more did the Goddess Demeter give grain to men; no more did she bless their fields: weeds grew where grain had been grow-
ing, and men feared that in a while they would famish for lack of bread.
She wandered through the world, her thought all upon her child, Persephone, who had been taken from her. Once she sat by a well by a wayside, thinking upon the child that she might not come to and who might not come to her.
She saw four maidens come near; their grace and their youth [pg 65] reminded her of her child. They stepped lightly along, carrying bronze pitchers in their hands, for they were coming to the Well of the Maiden beside which Demeter sat.
Persephone and Aidoneus
The maidens thought when they looked upon her that the goddess was some ancient woman who had a sorrow in her heart. See-ing that she was so noble and so sorrowful looking, the maidens, as they drew the clear water into their pitchers, spoke kindly to her.
"Why do you stay away from the town, old mother?" one of the maidens said. "Why do you not come to the houses? We think
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that you look as if you were shelterless and alone, and we should like to tell you that there are many houses in the town where you would be welcomed."
Demeter's heart went out to the maidens, because they looked so young and fair and simple and spoke out of such kind hearts. She said to them: "Where can I go, dear children? My people are far away, and there are none in all the world who would care to be near me."
Said one of the maidens: "There are princes in the land who would welcome you in their houses if you would consent to nurse one of their young children. But why do I speak of other princes beside Celeus, our father? In his house you would indeed have a welcome. But lately a baby has been born to our mother, Metaneira, and she would greatly rejoice to have one as wise as you mind little Demophoon."
All the time that she watched them and listened to their [pg 66] voices Demeter felt that the grace and youth of the maidens made them like Persephone. She thought that it would ease her heart to be in the house where these maidens were, and she was not loath
to have them go and ask of their mother to have her come to nurse the infant child.
Swiftly they ran back to their home, their hair streaming behind them like crocus flowers; kind and lovely girls whose names are
well remembered--Callidice and Cleisidice, Demo and Callithoe. They went to their mother and they told her of the stranger-wom- an whose name was Doso. She would make a wise and a kind nurse for little Demophoon, they said. Their mother, Metaneira, rose up from the couch she was sitting on to welcome the stranger. But when she saw her at the doorway, awe came over her, so majestic she seemed.
Metaneira would have her seat herself on the couch but the goddess took the lowliest stool, saying in greeting: "May the gods give you all good, lady."
"Sorrow has set you wandering from your good home," said Metaneira to the goddess, "but now that you have come to this place you shall have all that this house can bestow if you will rear up to youth the infant Demophoon, child of many hopes and prayers."
The child was put into the arms of Demeter; she clasped him to her breast, and little Demophoon looked up into her face and smiled. Then Demeter's heart went out to the child and to all who were in the household.
[pg 67] He grew in strength and beauty in her charge. And little Demophoon was not nourished as other children are nourished, but even as the gods in their childhood were nourished. Demeter fed him on ambrosia, breathing on him with her divine breath the
while. And at night she laid him on the hearth, amongst the embers, with the fire all around him. This she did that she might make
him immortal, and like to the gods.
But one night Metaneira looked out from the chamber where she lay, and she saw the nurse take little Demophoon and lay him in a place on the hearth with the burning brands all around him. Then Metaneira started up, and she sprang to the hearth, and she snatched the child from beside the burning brands. "Demophoon, my son," she cried, "what would this stranger-woman do to you, bringing bitter grief to me that ever I let her take you in her arms?"
Then said Demeter: "Foolish indeed are you mortals, and not able to foresee what is to come to you of good or of evil! Foolish
indeed are you, Metaneira, for in your heedlessness you have cut off this child from an immortality like to the immortality of the gods themselves. For he had lain in my bosom and had become dear to me and I would have bestowed upon him the greatest gift that the Divine Ones can bestow, for I would have made him deathless and unaging. All this,