So spake the Goddess, and straightway answered her the maid unwed, Callidice, the fairest of the daughters of Celeus: 

“Mother, what things soever the Gods do give must men, though sorrowing, endure, for the Gods are far stronger than we; but this will I tell thee clearly and soothly, namely, what men they are who here have most honour, and who lead the people, and by their counsels and just dooms do safeguard the bulwarks of the city.  Such are wise Triptolemus, Diocles, Polyxenus, and noble Eumolpus, and Dolichus, and our lordly father.  All their wives keep their houses, and not one of them would at first sight contemn thee and thrust thee from their halls, but gladly they will receive thee:  for thine aspect is divine.  So, if thou wilt, abide here, that we may go to the house of my father, and tell out all this tale to my mother, the deep-bosomed Metaneira, if perchance she will bid thee come to our house and not seek the homes of others.  A dear son born in her later years is nurtured in the well-builded hall, a child of many prayers and a welcome.  If thou wouldst nurse him till he comes to the measure of youth, then whatsoever woman saw thee should envy thee; such gifts of fosterage would my mother give thee.”

So spake she and the Goddess nodded assent.  So rejoicing they filled their shining pitchers with water and bore them away.  Swiftly they came to the high hall of their father, and quickly they told their mother what they had heard and seen, and speedily she bade them run and call the strange woman, offering goodly hire.  Then as deer or calves in the season of Spring leap along the meadow, when they have had their fill of pasture, so lightly they kilted up the folds of their lovely kirtles, and ran along the hollow chariot-way, while their hair danced on their shoulders, in colour like the crocus flower.  They found the glorious Goddess at the wayside, even where they had left her, and anon they led her to their father’s house.  But she paced behind in heaviness of heart, her head veiled, and the dark robe floating about her slender feet divine.  Speedily they came to the house of Celeus, the fosterling of Zeus, and they went through the corridor where their lady mother was sitting by the doorpost of the well-wrought hall, with her child in her lap, a young blossom, and the girls ran up to her, but the Goddess stood on the threshold, her head touching the roof-beam, and she filled the doorway with the light divine.  Then wonder, and awe, and pale fear seized the mother, and she gave place from her high seat, and bade the Goddess be seated.  But Demeter the bearer of the Seasons, the Giver of goodly gifts, would not sit down upon the shining high seat.  Nay, in silence she waited, casting down her lovely eyes, till the wise Iambe set for her a well-made stool, and cast over it a glistering fleece. {194} Then sat she down and held the veil before her face; long in sorrow and silence sat she so, and spake to no man nor made any sign, but smileless she sat, nor tasted meat nor drink, wasting with long desire for her deep-bosomed daughter.