growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to have no bottom;
and all the while, there came a rumbling noise out of its depths,
louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, and sounding like the tramp
of horses' hoofs and the rattling of wheels. Too much frightened to
run away she stood straining her eyes into this wonderful cavity, and
soon saw a team of four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their
nostrils, and tearing their way out of the earth with a splendid golden
chariot whirling at their heels. They leaped out of the bottomless
hole, chariot and all; and there they were, tossing their black manes,
flourishing their black tails, and curvetting with every one of their
hoofs off the ground at once, close by the spot where Proserpina stood.
In the chariot sat the figure of a man, richly dressed, with a crown
on his head, all flaming with diamonds. He was of a noble aspect,
and rather handsome, but looked sullen and discontented; and he kept
rubbing his eyes and shading them with his hand, as if he did not live
enough in the sunshine to be very fond of its light.
As soon as this personage saw the affrighted Proserpina, he beckoned
her to come a little nearer.
"Do not be afraid," said he, with as cheerful a smile as he knew how
to put on. "Come. Will not you like to ride a little way with me in my
beautiful chariot?"
But Proserpina was so alarmed, that she wished for nothing but to get
out of his reach. And no wonder. The stranger did not look remarkably
good natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones
were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an
earthquake under ground as anything else. As is always the case with
children in trouble, Proserpina's first thought was to call for her
mother.
"Mother, Mother Ceres!" cried she, all in a tremble. "Come quickly and
save me."
But her voice was too faint for her mother to hear. Indeed, it is
most probable that Ceres was then a thousand miles off, making the
corn grow in some far distant country. Nor could it have availed her
poor daughter, even had she been within hearing; for no sooner did
Proserpina begin to cry out, than the stranger leaped to the ground,
caught the child in his arms, and again mounting the chariot, shook
the reins, and shouted to the four black horses to set off. They
immediately broke into so swift a gallop, that it seemed rather like
flying through the air than running along the earth. In a moment,
Proserpina lost sight of the pleasant vale of Enna, in which she had
always dwelt. Another instant, and even the summit of Mount Ætna had
become so blue in the distance, that she could scarcely distinguish it
from the smoke that gushed out of its crater. But still the poor child
screamed, and scattered her apron full of flowers along the way, and
left a long cry trailing behind the chariot; and many mothers, to whose
ears it came, ran quickly to see if any mischief had befallen their
children. But Mother Ceres was a great way off, and could not hear the
cry.
As they rode on, the stranger did his best to soothe her.
"Why should you be so frightened, my pretty child?" said he, trying
to soften his rough voice. "I promise not to do you any harm. What!
You have been gathering flowers? Wait till we come to my palace, and I
will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all made
of pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. Can you guess who I am? They call
my name Pluto; and I am the king of diamonds and all other precious
stones. Every atom of the gold and silver that lies under the earth
belongs to me, to say nothing of the copper and iron, and of the coal
mines, which supply me with abundance of fuel. Do you see this splendid
crown upon my head? You may have it for a plaything. O, we shall be
very good friends, and you will find me more agreeable than you expect,
when once we get out of this troublesome sunshine."
"Let me go home!" cried Proserpina. "Let me go home!"
"My home is better than your mother's," answered King Pluto. "It is a
palace, all made of gold, with crystal windows; and because there is
little or no sunshine thereabouts, the apartments are illuminated with
diamond lamps. You never saw anything half so magnificent as my throne.
If you like, you may sit down on it, and be my little queen, and I will
sit on the footstool."
"I don't care for golden palaces and thrones," sobbed Proserpina. "O my
mother, my mother! Carry me back to my mother!"
But King Pluto, as he called himself, only shouted to his steeds to go
faster.
"Pray do not be foolish, Proserpina," said he, in rather a sullen tone.
"I offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that are under
the earth; and you treat me as if I were doing you an injury. The one
thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid, to run up stairs
and down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile. And this is what you
must do for King Pluto."
"Never!" answered Proserpina, looking as miserable as she could. "I
shall never smile again till you set me down at my mother's door."
But she might just as well have talked to the wind that whistled
past them; for Pluto urged on his horses, and went faster than ever.
Proserpina continued to cry out, and screamed so long and so loudly,
that her poor little voice was almost screamed away; and when it was
nothing but a whisper, she happened to cast her eyes over a great,
broad field of waving grain--and whom do you think she saw? Who, but
Mother Ceres, making the corn grow, and too busy to notice the golden
chariot as it went rattling along. The child mustered all her strength,
and gave one more scream, but was out of sight before Ceres had time to
turn her head.
King Pluto had taken a road which now began to grow excessively gloomy.
It was bordered on each side with rocks and precipices, between which
the rumbling of the chariot wheels was reverberated with a noise like
rolling thunder. The trees and bushes that grew in the crevices of the
rocks had very dismal foliage; and by and by, although it was hardly
noon, the air became obscured with a gray twilight. The black horses
had rushed along so swiftly, that they were already beyond the limits
of the sunshine. But the duskier it grew, the more did Pluto's visage
assume an air of satisfaction. After all, he was not an ill-looking
person, especially when he left off twisting his features into a smile
that did not belong to them. Proserpina peeped at his face through the
gathering dusk, and hoped that he might not be so very wicked as she at
first thought him.
"Ah, this twilight is truly refreshing," said King Pluto, "after being
so tormented with that ugly and impertinent glare of the sun. How much
more agreeable is lamplight or torchlight, more particularly when
reflected from diamonds! It will be a magnificent sight, when we get to
my palace."
"Is it much farther?" asked Proserpina. "And will you carry me back
when I have seen it?"
"We will talk of that by and by," answered Pluto. "We are just entering
my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us? When we pass
those gates, we are at home. And there lies my faithful mastiff at the
threshold. Cerberus! Cerberus! Come hither, my good dog!"
So saying, Pluto pulled at the reins, and stopped the chariot right
between the tall, massive pillars of the gateway. The mastiff of which
he had spoken got up from the threshold, and stood on his hinder
legs, so as to put his fore paws on the chariot wheel. But, my stars,
what a strange dog it was! Why, he was a big, rough, ugly-looking
monster, with three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the
two others; but fierce as they were, King Pluto patted them all. He
seemed as fond of his three-headed dog as if it had been a sweet little
spaniel, with silken ears and curly hair. Cerberus, on the other hand,
was evidently rejoiced to see his master, and expressed his attachment,
as other dogs do, by wagging his tail at a great rate. Proserpina's
eyes being drawn to it by its brisk motion, she saw that this tail was
neither more nor less than a live dragon, with fiery eyes, and fangs
that had a very poisonous aspect. And while the three-headed Cerberus
was fawning so lovingly on King Pluto, there was the dragon tail
wagging against its will, and looking as cross and ill natured as you
can imagine, on its own separate account.
"Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina shrinking closer to Pluto.
"What an ugly creature he is!"
"O, never fear," answered her companion. "He never harms people,
unless they try to enter my dominions without being sent for, or to
get away when I wish to keep them here. Down, Cerberus! Now, my pretty
Proserpina, we will drive on."
On went the chariot, and King Pluto seemed greatly pleased to find
himself once more in his own kingdom. He drew Proserpina's attention
to the rich veins of gold that were to be seen among the rocks, and
pointed to several places where one stroke of a pickaxe would loosen a
bushel of diamonds. All along the road, indeed, there were sparkling
gems, which would have been of inestimable value above ground, but
which here were reckoned of the meaner sort, and hardly worth a
beggar's stooping for.
Not far from the gateway, they came to a bridge, which seemed to be
built of iron. Pluto stopped the chariot, and bade Proserpina look at
the stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it. Never in her life
had she beheld so torpid, so black, so muddy-looking a stream: its
waters reflected no images of any thing that was on the banks, and it
moved as sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to
flow, and had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other.
"This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. "Is it not a very
pleasant stream?"
"I think it a very dismal one," said Proserpina.
"It suits my taste, however," answered Pluto, who was apt to be sullen
when anybody disagreed with him. "At all events, its water has one very
excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes people forget every
care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them. Only sip a little
of it, my dear Proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for
your mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your
being perfectly happy in my palace. I will send for some, in a golden
goblet, the moment we arrive."
"O, no, no, no!" cried Proserpina, weeping afresh. "I had a thousand
times rather be miserable with remembering my mother, than be happy in
forgetting her. That dear, dear mother! I never, never will forget her."
"We shall see," said King Pluto. "You do not know what fine times we
will have in my palace. Here we are just at the portal. These pillars
are solid gold, I assure you."
He alighted from the chariot, and taking Proserpina in his arms,
carried her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the
palace. It was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious
stones, of various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps, and
glowed with a hundred fold radiance all through the vast apartment. And
yet there was a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light;
nor was there a single object in the hall that was really agreeable
to behold, except the little Proserpina herself, a lovely child, with
one earthly flower which she had not let fall from her hand. It is
my opinion that even King Pluto had never been happy in his palace
and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away Proserpina,
in order that he might have something to love, instead of cheating
his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence. And though he
pretended to dislike the sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect
of the child's presence, bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a
faint and watery sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the
enchanted hall.
Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in
preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to fail
of setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proserpina's plate.
"I will neither drink that nor anything else," said Proserpina. "Nor
will I taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your
palace."
"I should be sorry for that," replied King Pluto, patting her cheek;
for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. "You are a
spoiled child, I perceive, my little Proserpina; but when you see the
nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly
come again."
Then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all sorts
of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should be
set before Proserpina. He had a secret motive in this; for you are to
understand, it is a fixed law, that, when persons are carried off to
the land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never
get back to their friends. Now, if King Pluto had been cunning enough
to offer Proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk, (which was the
simple fare to which the child had always been accustomed,) it is very
probable that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. But he left
the matter entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks, considered
nothing fit to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly-seasoned meat,
or spiced sweet cakes--things which Proserpina's mother had never given
her, and the smell of which quite took away her appetite, instead of
sharpening it.
But my story must now clamber out of King Pluto's dominions, and see
what Mother Ceres has been about, since she was bereft of her daughter.
We had a glimpse of her, while the four black steeds were swiftly
whirling along the chariot, in which her beloved Proserpina was so
unwillingly borne away. You recollect, too, the loud scream which
Proserpina gave, just when the chariot was out of sight.
Of all the child's outcries, this last shriek was the only one that
reached the ears of Mother Ceres. She had mistaken the rumbling of the
chariot wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower was
coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn grow. But,
at the sound of Proserpina's shriek, she started, and looked about in
every direction, not knowing whence it came, but feeling almost certain
that it was her daughter's voice. It seemed so unaccountable, however,
that the girl should have strayed over so many lands and seas, (which
she herself could not have traversed without the aid of her winged
dragons,) that the good Ceres tried to believe that it must be the
child of some other parent, and not her own darling Proserpina, who
had uttered this lamentable cry. Nevertheless, it troubled her with a
vast many tender fears, such as are ready to bestir themselves in every
mother's heart, when she finds it necessary to go away from her dear
children without leaving them under the care of some maiden aunt, or
other such faithful guardian. So she quickly left the field in which
she had been so busy; and, as her work was not half done, the grain
looked, next day, as if it needed both sun and rain, and as if it were
blighted in the ear, and had something the matter with its roots.
The pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for, in less than
an hour, Mother Ceres had alighted at the door of her home, and found
it empty. Knowing, however, that the child was fond of sporting on
the sea shore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there
beheld the wet faces of the poor sea nymphs peeping over a wave. All
this while, the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge,
and, once every half minute or so, had popped up their four heads above
water, to see if their playmate were yet coming back. When they saw
Mother Ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave, and let it
toss them ashore at her feet.
"Where is Proserpina?" cried Ceres. "Where is my child? Tell me, you
naughty sea nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?"
"O, no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing back
their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "We never should
dream of such a thing. Proserpina has been at play with us, it is true;
but she left us a long while ago, meaning only to run a little way upon
the dry land, and gather some flowers for a wreath. This was early in
the day, and we have seen nothing of her since."
Ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before she
hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood. But nobody
told her anything that could enable the poor mother to guess what had
become of Proserpina. A fisherman, it is true, had noticed her little
footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along the beach with a
basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers;
several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot wheels, or the
rumble of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain
and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish
nonsense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. The stupid
people! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that
they knew, that it was dark night before Mother Ceres found out that
she must seek her daughter elsewhere. So she lighted a torch, and set
forth, resolving never to come back until Proserpina was discovered.
In her haste and trouble of mind, she quite forgot her car and the
winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up
the search more thoroughly on foot. At all events, this was the way
in which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before
her, and looking carefully at every object along the path. And as it
happened, she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent
flowers which grew on the shrub that Proserpina had pulled up.
"Ha!" thought Mother Ceres, examining it by torchlight. "Here is
mischief in this flower! The earth did not produce it by any help of
mine, nor of its own accord. It is the work of enchantment, and is
therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child."
But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing whether she
might ever find any other memorial of Proserpina.
All night long, at the door of every cottage and farm house, Ceres
knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had seen
her child; and they stood, gaping and half asleep, at the threshold,
and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in and rest.
At the portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a summons that
the menials hurried to throw open the gate, thinking that it must be
some great king or queen, who would demand a banquet for supper and a
stately chamber to repose in. And when they saw only a sad and anxious
woman, with a torch in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her
head, they spoke rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon
her. But nobody had seen Proserpina, nor could give Mother Ceres the
least hint which way to seek her. Thus passed the night; and still she
continued her search without sitting down to rest or stopping to take
food, or even remembering to put out the torch; although first the rosy
dawn and then the glad light of the morning sun made its red flame look
thin and pale. But I wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of;
for it burned dimly through the day, and, at night was as bright as
ever, and never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary
days and nights while Ceres was seeking for Proserpina.
It was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her
daughter. In the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of another
nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant and
solitary places, and were very sociable with persons who understood
their language and customs, as Mother Ceres did. Sometimes, for
instance, she tapped with her finger against the knotted trunk of a
majestic oak; and immediately its rude bark would cleave asunder, and
forth would step a beautiful maiden, who was the hamadryad of the oak,
dwelling inside of it, and sharing its long life, and rejoicing when
its green leaves sported with the breeze. But not one of these leafy
damsels had seen Proserpina. Then, going a little farther, Ceres would,
perhaps, come to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the
earth, and would dabble with her hand in the water. Behold, up through
its sandy and pebbly bed, along with the fountain's gush, a young woman
with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half
out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless
motion. But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had
stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes,
(for these water nymphs had tears to spare for everybody's grief,)
would answer "No!" in a murmuring voice, which was just like the murmur
of the stream.
Often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like sunburnt
country people, except that they had hairy ears, and little horns upon
their foreheads, and the hinder legs of goats, on which they gambolled
merrily about the woods and fields. They were a frolicsome kind of
creature, but grew as sad as their cheerful dispositions would allow,
when Ceres inquired for her daughter, and they had no good news to
tell. But sometimes she came suddenly upon a rude gang of satyrs, who
had faces like monkeys, and horses' tails behind them, and who were
generally dancing in a very boisterous manner, with shouts of noisy
laughter. When she stopped to question them, they would only laugh the
louder, and make new merriment out of the lone woman's distress. How
unkind of those ugly satyrs! And once, while crossing a solitary sheep
pasture, she saw a personage named Pan, seated at the foot of a tall
rock, and making music on a shepherd's flute. He, too, had horns, and
hairy ears, and goat's feet; but, being acquainted with Mother Ceres,
he answered her question as civilly as he knew how, and invited her to
taste some milk and honey out of a wooden bowl. But neither could Pan
tell her what had become of Proserpina, any better than the rest of
these wild people.
And thus Mother Ceres went wandering about for nine long days and
nights, finding no trace of Proserpina, unless it were now and then
a withered flower; and these she picked up and put into her bosom,
because she fancied that they might have fallen from her poor child's
hand. All day she travelled onward through the hot sun; and at night,
again, the flame of the torch would redden and gleam along the pathway,
and she continued her search by its light, without ever sitting down to
rest.
On the tenth day, she chanced to espy the mouth of a cavern, within
which (though it was bright noon everywhere else) there would have been
only a dusky twilight; but it so happened that a torch was burning
there. It flickered, and struggled with the duskiness, but could not
half light up the gloomy cavern with all its melancholy glimmer. Ceres
was resolved to leave no spot without a search; so she peeped into the
entrance of the cave, and lighted it up a little more, by holding her
own torch before her. In so doing, she caught a glimpse of what seemed
to be a woman, sitting on the brown leaves of the last autumn, a great
heap of which had been swept into the cave by the wind. This woman (if
woman it were) was by no means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her
head, they tell me, was shaped very much like a dog's, and, by way of
ornament, she wore a wreath of snakes around it. But Mother Ceres, the
moment she saw her, knew that this was an odd kind of a person, who put
all her enjoyment in being miserable, and never would have a word to
say to other people, unless they were as melancholy and wretched as she
herself delighted to be.
[Illustration: So she peeped into the entrance of the cave.]
"I am wretched enough now," thought poor Ceres, "to talk with this
melancholy Hecate, were she ten times sadder than ever she was yet."
So she stepped into the cave, and sat down on the withered leaves by
the dog-headed woman's side. In all the world, since her daughter's
loss, she had found no other companion.
"O Hecate," said she, "if ever you lose a daughter, you will know
what sorrow is. Tell me, for pity's sake, have you seen my poor child
Proserpina pass by the mouth of your cavern?"
"No," answered Hecate, in a cracked voice, and sighing betwixt every
word or two; "no, Mother Ceres, I have seen nothing of your daughter.
But my ears, you must know, are made in such a way, that all cries of
distress and affright, all over the world, are pretty sure to find
their way to them; and nine days ago, as I sat in my cave, making
myself very miserable, I heard the voice of a young girl, shrieking as
if in great distress. Something terrible has happened to the child, you
may rest assured. As well as I could judge, a dragon, or some other
cruel monster was carrying her away."