"Take me back to the light. I want to go home. Oh, I beg of you, take me home!" Proserpine cried, but her words only echoed through the vaults of the kingdom of darkness. And when she tried to make her escape, her frail little hands were bruised from beating against the thick iron door that shut her in.
The next morning Aurora rode through the sky to put away the stars and touch the clouds with the pink color of the dawn. Looking down to the earth, she saw a goddess who had arisen long before the dawn and was hurrying up and down the earth, wringing her hands and with tears in her eyes. She wore a chaplet woven of the golden heads of the grain, and she was straight and strong and beautiful in her flowing robes of green, but she did not lift her eyes from the earth, so deep was her sorrow.
That evening Hesperus, who followed in Aurora's course each sunset to lead out the stars, saw the same goddess. Her robes were torn and stained from her travels and bedraggled with the dew. She was still weeping, and still searching. She was going to search, without rest, all night.
Many others saw this goddess in the days that followed. She was always roaming from daylight until dark, in the open, in sunlight and moonlight, and in falling showers. She was weary and sad. In such a plight a peasant, named Celeus, found her one day. He had been out in a field gathering acorns and blackberries, and binding bundles of sticks for his fire. The goddess sat there on a stone, too tired to go on.
"Why do you sit here alone on the rocks?" Celeus asked her. He carried a heavy load, but he stopped to try and succor her. "Come to my cottage and rest," he entreated her. "My little son is very ill, and we have only a most humble roof, but such as it is we will be glad to share it with you."
The goddess rose and gathered her arms full of crimson poppies. Then she followed Celeus home.
They found deep distress in the cottage, for the little boy was so ill as to be almost past hope. His mother could scarcely speak for her sorrow, but she welcomed the wandering goddess and spread the table for her with curds and cream, apples, and golden honey dripping from the comb. The goddess ate, but her eyes were on the sick child and when his mother poured milk into a goblet for him she mingled the juice of her poppies with it.
At last night came, and the peasants slept. Then the goddess arose and took the little boy in her arms. She touched his weak limbs with her strong, skilful hands, said a charm over him three times, and then laid him in the warm ashes of the fire.
"Would you kill my son? Wicked woman that you are to so abuse my hospitality!" the child's mother cried, awaking and seeing what the goddess had done.
But just then a strange thing happened. The cottage was filled with a splendor like white lightning, and a light seemed to shine from the skin of the goddess. A lovely perfume was scattered from her fragrant garments, and her hair was as bright as gold.