“Now we—the Muses of Aonia—
were challenged to reply. But if your time
is short, and other cares call you away,
you may not want to hear the song we sang.”
“No, no; you can be sure,” Minerva said;
“I’ll listen from the start until you end.”
She sat down in the woodland’s pleasant shade.
The Muse replied: “We chose Calliope;
Latin [318–37]
for all of us, she would—as one—compete.
Our sister rose; her flowing tresses wreathed
with ivy, she began to pluck the strings;
and their vibrations joined her mournful chant:
“‘The first to furrow earth with the curved plow,
the first to harvest wheat, the first to feed
the world with food men cultivate in peace,
the first to bless the earth with laws—was Ceres;
all things are gifts she gave. I want to sing
of Ceres: may my offering be worthy—
this goddess surely merits poetry.
“‘The island mass of Sicily is heaped
upon a giant’s body: underneath
its soil and stones Typhoeus lies—the one
who dared to hope for heaven as his kingdom.
He writhes; he often tries to rise again.
But Mount Pelorus (closest to the land
of the Italians) crushes his right hand;
his left is in Pachynus’ grip, just as
his legs are in Mount Lilybaeum’s grasp;
his head is pressed—vast Etna holds it fast.
Beneath this mountain, on his back, in rage,
Typhoeus’ mouth spits ashes, vomits flames.
He often strives to heave aside the ground—
the towns and heavy peaks that pin him down.
Then earth quakes. As it trembles, even he
who rules the kingdom of the silent dead
is anxious, for the crust of Sicily
may split and a wide crack reveal things secret:
daylight might penetrate so deep that it
would terrify the trembling Shades. His fear
of such disaster led that lord of darkness
to leave his sunless kingdom. Mounted on
his chariot—it was drawn by two black stallions—
he carefully assessed the island mass.
When he was sure that there were no vast cracks.
Latin [338–62]
that Sicily was everywhere intact,
his fears were ended. Then, as Pluto rode
from site to site, down from her mountain slopes
of Eryx, Venus saw him. As she clasped
her winged son, Cupid, this is what she asked:
“‘“O you, my son, my weapon and my armor,
dear Cupid—you, my power—take those shafts
to which both gods and mortals must submit;
with one of your swift arrows pierce the chest
of Pluto—god who, when the lots were cast,
assigning the three realms, received the last.
You conquer and command sky-deities—
not even Jove is free from your decrees;
sea-gods are governed by your rule—and he
who is the god of gods who rule the sea.
And why should Tartarus elude our laws?
Why not extend your mother’s power—and yours?
One-third of all the world is still not ours.
We have been slow to act, but indecision
has earned us nothing more than scorn in heaven.
And—son—if my authority should weaken,
then yours would suffer, too. Do you not see
how both Athena and the hunting goddess,
Diana, would defy me? And the daughter
of Ceres, if we let her choose, will be
like them: she is so bent on chastity.
But for the sake of all I share with you,
please join that goddess-girl, Proserpina,
to her great uncle, Pluto.” This, she asked.
Love, opening his quiver—he respects
his mother—from his thousand shafts selects
the sharpest, surest shaft—the arrow most
responsive to the pressure of his bow.
Across his knee, the pliant bow is bent;
Love’s hooked barb pierces Pluto through the chest.
Latin [362–84]
“‘Not far from Enna’s walls there are deep waters.
That lake—called Pergus—hears a music richer,
more songs of swans, than even the Cayster
hears as its current courses. Tall hills circle
that lake. Woods crown the slopes—and like a veil,
the forest boughs abate the flames of Phoebus.
Beneath those leaves, the air is cool, the soil
is damp—with many flowers, many colors.
There spring is never-ending. In that grove
Proserpina was playing, gathering
violets and white lilies. She had filled
her basket and, within her tunic’s folds,
had tucked fresh flowers, vying with her friends
to see which girl could gather more of them.
There Pluto—almost in one instant—saw,
was struck with longing, carried that girl off—
so quick—unhesitating—was his love.
“‘The goddess-girl was terrified. She called—
in grief—upon her mother and companions,
but more upon her mother. She had ripped
her tunic at its upper edge, and since
the folds were loosened now, the flowers fell.
So simple is the heart of a young girl
that, at that loss, new grief is what she felt.
Her captor urged his chariot, incited
his horses, calling each by name and shaking
the dark-rust reins upon their necks and manes.
He galloped over the deep lake and through
the pools of the Palici, where the soil
spews fumes of sulfur and the waters boil.
He reached that place where the Bacchiadae—
a race that came from Corinth, which is bathed
by seas upon two sides—had built their city
between two harbors of unequal size.
“‘Between the spring of Cyane and the spring
of Arethusa (which had flowed from Greece),
Latin [385–409]
there is a stretch of sea that is hemmed in,
confined between two narrow horns of land.
Among those waves lived Cyane, Sicily’s
most celebrated nymph, and she had given
her name to that lagoon. Above the eddies,
just at the center, Cyane rose, waist-high.
She recognized Proserpina and cried:
“Pluto, you cannot pass. You cannot be
the son-in-law of Ceres unless she
gives her consent. To ask is not to rape.
And if I may compare small things to great,
I, too, was wooed—by Anapis—but I
wed him in answer to his prayers and pleas—
he never used the terror you abuse.”
That said, she stretched her arms upon both sides
to block his chariot. But Saturn’s son
could not contain his anger any longer:
he spurred his terrifying stallions, whirled
his royal scepter with his sturdy arm.
He struck the very depths of Cyane’s pool.
The blow was such that, down to Tartarus,
earth opened up a crater: on that path
he plunged to darkness in his chariot.
“‘But Cyane nursed an inconsolable—
a silent—wound that was incurable:
a sadness for the rape of Ceres’ daughter
and for the violation of the waters
of her own pool—for Pluto’s scorn and anger.
She gave herself to tears and then dissolved
into the very pool of which she had—
till now—been the presiding deity.
You could have seen the softening of her limbs,
the bones and nails that lost solidity.
Her slender hairs, her fingers, legs, and feet—
these were the first to join the waves. In fact,
the slenderest parts can sooner turn into
cool waters. Shoulders, back, and sides, and breasts
Latin [410–35]
were next to vanish in thin streams. At last,
clear water flows through Cyane’s weakened veins,
and there is nothing left that one can grasp.
“‘Meanwhile, the heartsick Ceres seeks her daughter:
she searches every land, all waves and waters.
No one—not Dawn with her dew-laden hair,
nor Hesperus—saw Ceres pause. She kindled
two pinewood torches in the flames of Etna.
Through nights of frost, a torch in either hand,
she wandered. Ceres never rested. When
the gracious day had dimmed the stars, again
the goddess searched from west to east, from where
the sun would set to where the sun ascends.
“‘Worn out and racked by thirst—she had not wet
her lips at any spring along her path—
she chanced to see a hut whose roof was thatched
with straw. And Ceres knocked at that poor door,
which an old woman opened. When she saw
the goddess there and heard her ask for water,
she gave her a sweet drink in which she’d soaked
roast barley. While the goddess drank this brew,
a boy came up to her; and scornful, rude,
he laughed and said she drank too greedily.
Offended, Ceres stopped her sipping, threw
the brew and all of its pearl-barley grains
full in his face. So—soaked—his face soon showed
those grains as spots; his arms were changed to claws;
a tail was added to his altered limbs.
And that his form might not inflict much harm,
the goddess shrank him, left him small—much like
a lizard, and yet tinier in size.
This wondrous change was watched by the old woman,
who wept to see it, even as she tried
to touch the transformed shape: he scurried off
to find a place to hide. The name he got
Latin [435–61]
ais suited to his skin: the starry newt—
a beast that glitters with his starlike spots.
“‘To tell the lands and seas that Ceres crossed
would take too long: the world was not enough
to satisfy the searching mother. She
returned to Sicily, explored again
each part. She reached the pool of Cyane.
If Cyane had not been changed, she now
would have told Ceres all she knew; but while
she longs to speak, she lacks a tongue to tell.
“‘Yet Cyane transmitted one sure clue:
upon the surface of her waters floats
the girdle that Proserpina had worn;
that girdle—one that Ceres knew so well—
had chanced to fall into the sacred pool.
No sooner had she recognized that sign,
than Ceres—as if now, for the first time,
she knew her daughter had been stolen—tore
her unkempt hair; her hands beat at her breast
again, again. She did not know as yet
just where her daughter was, but she condemned
all lands. She said they were ungrateful and
unworthy of the gift of harvests she
had given them—above all, Sicily,
the place that showed the trace of the misdeed.
And there, in Sicily, she—without pity—
shattered the plows that turned the soil; her fury
brought death to both the farmers and their cattle.
She spoiled the seeds; she ordered the plowed fields
to fail; she foiled the hope and trust of mortals.
Now Sicily’s fertility—renowned
throughout the world—appears to be a lie:
as soon as grass is in the blade, it dies,
undone by too much rain or too much sun.
The stars and winds bring blight; the greedy birds
devour the seed as soon as it is sown;
Latin [461–85]
the crop is blocked by chokeweeds, tares, and thorns.
Then Arethusa, whom Alpheus loved,
lifted her head above her waters—these
had flowed to Sicily from Grecian Elis.
She brushed her dripping hair back from her brow
and said: “O Ceres, mother of the girl
you seek throughout the world, you, mother of
earth’s fruits and grain, forgo your fury, end
your devastating violence. This land
does not deserve your scourging: it was forced
to yield before the bandit’s brutal course.
And I do not beseech you on behalf
of my own homeland. I was not born here:
I come from Pisa, in the land of Elis.
My origins were there—yet Sicily
is dearer to me than all other countries.
I, Arethusa, have a newfound home:
sweet Sicily is now my country—and,
kind Ceres, may your mercy save this island.
“‘“Why I have left my homeland, why I crossed
so vast a stretch of sea until I touched
Ortygia—there will yet be time enough
to speak of that, a time when you are free
of cares, a moment of tranquillity.
But I can tell you now my journey’s path:
earth, opening a chasm, let me pass.
I flowed through caverns deep below the surface,
then—here—I lifted up my head again,
again I saw the stars I had forgotten.
But in my passage underneath the earth
among the eddies of the Styx, I saw
Proserpina with my own eyes: she was
downcast, still somewhat touched by fear—and yet
she was a queen within that world of darkness,
the powerful companion—mighty mistress—
of Pluto, tyrant of the underworld.”
Latin [485–508]
“‘Hearing these things, the mother, Ceres, stood
as motionless as stone. Long moments passed:
her mind seemed lost. When that paralysis
of fear had given way to grief no less
oppressive, Ceres, on her chariot,
rode toward the upper air. With shadowed eyes,
her hair disheveled, hate-inflamed, she cried:
“For one who is of both your blood and mine,
o Jupiter, I come to plead with you.
Though I, her mother, do not matter, you
at least can care to save your daughter—I
should hope your care will not be any less
because she owes her birth to me. Our daughter,
after so long a search, is found—if one
can speak of finding when it just confirms
the loss more certainly, when finding means
no more than merely knowing where she is.
As for his theft of her—that I can bear—
he only has to give her back! My daughter
is mine no longer, but you cannot let
a robber win her as his wife—through theft.”
“‘Then Jupiter replied: “We share the care
and tenderness we owe to our dear daughter.
But if we would have things named properly,
then we must speak of love, not injury
or robbery. We should not be ashamed
of Pluto as a son-in-law—if only
you, goddess, would consent to that. Were he
to lack all else, it is no meager thing
to be the brother of a Jupiter!
But he, in fact, has many other splendors:
the portion of the world assigned to him
is, after all, a kingdom, only less
than what my portion is—and only chance
assigned this part to me and that to him.
In any case, if you are so intent
on separating them, Proserpina
Latin [509–30]
can see the sky again—on one condition:
that in the world below, she has not taken
food to her lips. This is the Fates’ edict.”
“‘These were his words. And yet, though Ceres wanted
to bring her daughter back, the Fates prevented
Proserpina’s return, for she had broken
her fast: the girl, in all her innocence,
while she was wandering through a well-kept garden
within the underworld, from a bent branch
had plucked a pomegranate. She had taken—
peeling away its pale rind—seven seeds
and pressed them to her lips. No one had seen
that act of hers—except Ascalaphus
(the son, they say, that Orphne—not the least
famous among Avemus’ nymphs—conceived
out of her love for Acheron, and bore
within the dark groves of the underworld).
He saw her taste those seeds: denouncing her,
he thwarted her return to earth. She moaned—
the queen of Erebus. Then, in revenge,
she changed that witness. He was made a bird
of evil omen: on his head she poured
waters of Phlegethon. Enormous eyes
and beak and feathers now are his. Depriveds
of what he was, he now wears tawny wings;
his head is swollen, and his nails grow long
and hook back, forming claws; and it is hard
for him to move the feathers that now sprout
upon his sluggish arms. He has become
the bird that men detest—that would announce
calamities. He is the lazy screech-owl,
bringer of bitter auguries to mortals.
“‘Ascalaphus indeed seems to have earned
his punishment—his tongue was indiscreet.
But, Achelous’ daughters, why do you,
as Sirens, have birds’ feathers and birds’ feet—
Latin [530–53]
and features like a girl’s? Is it because
you, Sirens skilled in song, had been among
the band of friends who joined Proserpina
when she was gathering spring flowers near Enna?
For after you—in vain—had searched all lands
for her, so that the waves might also witness
that search for one you loved, you voiced a plea
to be allowed to glide above the sea,
using your arms as oars to beat the air.
You found the gods were well disposed to answer:
your limbs were wrapped—at once—in golden feathers.
But you were mesmerizing, suasive singers,
born to entrance the ears; and that your lips
not lose that gift, each one of you was left
with young girl’s features and a human voice.
“‘And what did Jupiter do then? Between
his brother Pluto and his grieving sister,
he has to strike a balance: he divides
the turning year into two equal portions.
Proserpina is shared by the two kingdoms:
the goddess is to spend six months beside
her husband, and six months beside her mother.
At once, the goddess’ face and spirit alter:
her brow, which until then seemed overcast
even to somber Pluto, now is glad,
just as, when it defeats the dark rainclouds,
the sun appears—victorious and proud.