’So spake she, and I mused in my heart and would fain have embraced the spirit of my mother dead.  Thrice I sprang towards her, and was minded to embrace her; thrice she flitted from my hands as a shadow or even as a dream, and sharp grief arose ever at my heart.  And uttering my voice I spake to her winged words: 

’"Mother mine, wherefore dost thou not abide me who am eager to clasp thee, that even in Hades we twain may cast our arms each about the other, and have our fill of chill lament?  Is this but a phantom that the high goddess Persephone hath sent me, to the end that I may groan for more exceeding sorrow?”

’So spake I, and my lady mother answered me anon:  “Ah me, my child, of all men most ill-fated, Persephone, the daughter of Zeus, doth in no wise deceive thee, but even on this wise it is with mortals when they die.  For the sinews no more bind together the flesh and the bones, but the great force of burning fire abolishes these, so soon as the life hath left the white bones, and the spirit like a dream flies forth and hovers near.  But haste with all thine heart toward the sunlight, and mark all this, that even hereafter thou mayest tell it to thy wife.”

’Thus we twain held discourse together; and lo, the women came up, for the high goddess Persephone sent them forth, all they that had been the wives and daughters of mighty men.  And they gathered and flocked about the black blood, and I took counsel how I might question them each one.  And this was the counsel that showed best in my sight.  I drew my long hanger from my stalwart thigh, and suffered them not all at one time to drink of the dark blood.  So they drew nigh one by one, and each declared her lineage, and I made question of all.

’Then verily did I first see Tyro, sprung of a noble sire, who said that she was the child of noble Salmoneus, and declared herself the wife of Cretheus, son of Aeolus.  She loved a river, the divine Enipeus, far the fairest of the floods that run upon the earth, and she would resort to the fair streams of Enipeus.  And it came to pass that the girdler of the world, the Earth-shaker, put on the shape of the god, and lay by the lady at the mouths of the whirling stream.  Then the dark wave stood around them like a hill-side bowed, and hid the god and the mortal woman.  And he undid her maiden girdle, and shed a slumber over her.  Now when the god had done the work of love, he clasped her hand and spake and hailed her: 

’"Woman, be glad in our love, and when the year comes round thou shalt give birth to glorious children,—­for not weak are the embraces of the gods,—­and do thou keep and cherish them.  And now go home and hold thy peace, and tell it not:  but behold, I am Poseidon, shaker of the earth.”

’Therewith he plunged beneath the heaving deep.  And she conceived and bare Pelias and Neleus, who both grew to be mighty men, servants of Zeus.  Pelias dwelt in wide Iolcos, and was rich in flocks; and that other abode in sandy Pylos.  And the queen of women bare yet other sons to Cretheus, even Aeson and Pheres and Amythaon, whose joy was in chariots.