Shrieking, Metanira rushed into the room and caught up her baby, burning herself badly in the act; and furiously she turned to the aged nurse.

“How dare you—­” she began; but there she stopped; for before her stood, not the ragged stranger, but a woman taller than mortal, with flowing yellow hair, bound with a wreath of wheat ears and red poppies.  And from her face shone a light so bright that Metanira was well-nigh blinded.

“O queen,” she said gravely, “thy curiosity and thy lack of faith have cost thy son dear.  Immortality was the gift I meant to bestow upon him, but now he shall grow old and die at last as other men.”  And with these words the goddess vanished. [Footnote:  Although Ceres was unable to do all she wished for Triptolemus, she did not forget him.  When he grew up she loaned him her dragon-car and sent him about the world teaching people how to till the soil, and, in particular, to use the plow.  It was Triptolemus who instituted the great festival at Eleusis which was held in honor of Ceres.]

Still finding no trace of her daughter, Ceres cursed the earth and forbade it to bring forth fruit until Proserpina should be found.

                    “Then on all lands
 She cast the spell of barrenness; the wheat
 Was blighted in the ear, the purple grapes
 Blushed no more on the vines.”

Great indeed must have been the anguish of this kindest of all goddesses when she could bring herself to adopt such measures.  Even the grief and want of the people among whom she moved could not waken her pity.

One day, when her wanderings had brought her back to Italy, Ceres came to the bank of the Cyane River, and there, glittering at her feet, was the girdle which she had watched her daughter put on the last day she saw her.  Torn between hope and fear, Ceres snatched it up.  Had Proserpina, then, been drowned in this raging river?  At any rate, it was much, after all these months, to find something which her dear daughter had touched, and with renewed energy she started on.  As she rested, late in the day, by the side of a cool, sparkling fountain, she fancied she heard words mingling with the splashing of the water.  Holding her breath, she listened: 

“O Ceres,” came the words, scarcely distinguishable, “I made a long journey underground, to cool my waters ere they burst forth at this point.  As I passed through the lower world, I saw, seated beside Pluto on his gloomy throne, a queen, crowned with stars and poppies.  Strangely like Proserpina she looked.”

The words died away, and Ceres, knowing well that none but the king of gods could help her now, hastened to Olympus and cast herself at the feet of Jupiter.

“Listen, O father of gods and men,” she said.  “What is that sound which you hear rising from the earth?”

“It sounds to me,” replied Jupiter, “like the wailing of men, joined with the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle.  Who is afflicting my people on earth?”