Fairest children of the Hours,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
Shelley.
Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, whilst gathering flowers with her playmates at Enna in Sicily, was carried off by Pluto, also called Dis, god of the dead. (For two-thirds, or, according to later writers, one-half of each year, she returns to the earth, bringing spring and summer.)
That fair field
Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered; which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world.