Demeter had one beloved daughter, Persephone, on whom she bestowed all the tenderness of her divine mother-heart. One day Persephone went out into the blooming meadows to play with her companions. The fields were gay with roses, violets, and lilies. The yellow crocus, the asphodel, and the purple and pink narcissus made bank and by-path seem like a soft carpet and filled the air with sweet fragrance.
Persephone stooped to pluck a flower of unusual beauty, when the earth suddenly opened and Hades appeared with a splendid chariot drawn by fiery black horses. He seized Persephone, and placing her on his chariot, drove away to his kingdom under the earth. Persephone uttered piercing cries, praying to the gods and imploring men to come to her rescue. But all in vain. Zeus looked on with approval, for he knew that his good brother ought not to be condemned to reign alone in the dread realms of darkness.
Now there was a goddess of the night, a torch-bearer who lived in a dark cave. Her name was Hekate and she knew the secrets of lonely forests and cross-roads and the gloomy underground world. She heard the shrieks of the maiden when Hades seized her; and Helios, too, the sun-god who sees everything, saw him bear her away.
The mother, Demeter, also, heard the cries of her daughter, and an unspeakable grief took possession of her. She wandered from place to place, taking neither food nor sleep, beseeching everyone to tell her where she could find her child. But no one could give her any information. She yoked her winged snakes to her car and drove with lighted torch through every country. Wherever she went she was received gladly by the people, for she stopped to teach them something of agriculture and left her blessing with them when she departed.
CHAPTER XXX
DEMETER’S GRIEF
On the tenth day of her wanderings she met Hekate, who said: “Lovable Demeter, who hath robbed thee of thy daughter and plunged thee into sorrow? I heard her cries when she was carried off, but I could not see who it was that took her. There is one, however, who sees everything, Helios, and he may tell thee where thy daughter is concealed.”
Demeter gladly took the hint, and with Hekate she set out to find Helios, and when they saw his horses and chariot they stationed themselves where they could speak to him. The venerable goddess said to him: “If ever, oh, Helios, I have pleased thee in word or deed, I pray thee look down from the heavens and tell me truly whether it is a god or a mortal that hath stolen my daughter.”
“Honored Queen,” replied Helios, “I willingly tell thee all I know. Hades hath taken thy daughter and led her into the gloomy kingdom below. But Zeus is the author of this deed, for he gave his permission to Hades to make Persephone his wife. Yet thou hast no need to grieve, for Hades is a loving husband and hath given thy daughter an honorable place as queen of his realm.”
When Demeter heard this her grief was unbounded and her anger terrible. She left the abode of the gods on Mount Olympos and went down to earth, where she assumed the form of a mortal woman. In her travels on the earth she reached Eleusis, and sat down on a stone near a spring, from which the people drew water.
As she sat there two beautiful maidens, daughters of Keleos, the King of Eleusis, came to the spring to fill their bronze pitchers with water. They saw the stately woman in garments of mourning, and, approaching her, asked with sympathy whence she came and why she sat alone so far from the city instead of coming to the houses, where the women would gladly show her every kindness in word and deed.