On golden chair in the regions infernal,
Beside her spouse, the monarch eternal,
Queen Proserpine’s sitting
With mien ill befitting
Her station, and sadly she’s sighing:
“For roses I yearn, and the rapturous blisses
“Of Philomel’s song, and the sun’s sweet kisses;
“And here ’mongst the pallid
“Lemures and squalid
“Dead bodies, my youth’s days are flying.
“I’m firmly bound in the hard yoke of marriage
“In this hole, which I’m sure e’en a rat would disparage
“And the spectres unsightly
“Through my window peep nightly,
“Their wails with the Styx’s groans vying.
“This very day I’ve invited to dinner
“Old Charon, the bald-pated spindle-shank’d sinner,—
“And also the Judges,
“Those wearisome drudges—
“Such company’s really too trying!”
III.
Whilst these murmurs unavailing
In the lower world found vent,
Ceres on the earth was wailing,
And the crazy goddess went,
With no cap on, with no collar,
And with loose dishevell’d hair,
Uttering, in a voice of dolour,
That lament known everywhere:[13]
“Is’t the beauteous spring I see?
“Hath the earth grown young again?
“Sunlit hills glow verdantly,
“Bursting through their icy chain.
“From the streamlet’s mirror blue
“Smiles the now-unclouded sky,
“Zephyr’s wings wave milder too,
“Youthful blossoms ope their eye.
“In the grove sweet songs resound,
“While the Oread thus doth speak:
“‘Once again thy flow’rs are found,
“Vain thy daughter ’tis to seek.’
“Ah, how long ’tis since I went
“First in search o’er earth’s wide face!
“Titan, all thy rays I sent,
“Seeking for the loved one’s trace!
“Of that form so dear, no ray
“Hath as yet brought news to me,
“And the all-discerning Day
“Cannot yet the lost one see.
“Hast thou, Zeus, her from me torn?
“Or to Orcus’ gloomy stream,
“Hath she been by Pluto borne,
“Smitten by her beauty’s beams?
“Who will to yon dreary strand
“Be the herald of my woe?
“Ever leaves the bark the land,
“Yet but shadows in it go.
“To each blest eye evermore
“Closed those night-like fields remain;
“Styx no living form e’er bore,
“Since his stream first wash’d the plain.
“Thousand paths lead downward there,
“None lead up again to light;
“And her tears no witness e’er
“Brings to her sad mother’s sight.”