Mercury was a kindly god, and he described to his father and the Fates most touchingly the grief of Proserpina.  Ceres joined her tears with those of her daughter, and the Fates finally decreed that while Proserpina must spend underground one month of every year for each pomegranate seed she had eaten, she might spend the rest of her time on earth.  Back hastened Mercury with the new decree, and Pluto unwillingly let his wife go.  She bade him an almost affectionate farewell, for after all, he had been good to her, and she might quite have loved him had his abode been a less gloomy place.  Up the dark and dangerous passages to earth Mercury conducted her, and it was strange to see how, as she stepped forth into the sunshine, her pallor and her sadness left her, and she became the bright-eyed, happy Proserpina of old.  And not only in her did the change appear.  About her, on all sides, the grass and corn came shooting through the dry brown earth.  Violets, hyacinths, daisies were everywhere, and Proserpina stooped and caressed them, with a gay laugh.  But what was her joy when she saw at the door of her home Mother Ceres, with arms outstretched to greet her!  Not even the thought of the separation which must surely come again could sadden their meeting.  For that day they sat together and talked of all that had happened in the weary months gone by; but the next morning Ceres mounted her dragon-car for the first time in many, many days, and set forth to the fields to tend the new grain, while Proserpina ran to the seashore and with a happy shout called the nymphs, her old companions, from their seaweed beds.

Each year thereafter, when Proserpina was led by Mercury to Pluto’s kingdom, Ceres, in grief and anger, shut herself up and would not attend to her duties, so that the earth was barren and drear.  Each year, with the return of Proserpina, the flash of green ran across the fields and announced her coming before she appeared in sight.  And all the people, weary and depressed after the hard, bitter months, joyed with Ceres at her daughter’s approach, and cried with her, “She comes!  She comes!  Proserpina!”

This story, like that of Phaethon, is a nature myth; that is, it accounts for natural phenomena which the Greeks saw about them.  As they conceived of Ceres, the earth goddess, as the kindest of the immortals, and of her daughter, Proserpina, the goddess of flowers and beautifying vegetation, as always young and happy, they found it hard to explain the barrenness of the winter months.  Why should Ceres and Proserpina neglect the earth during a part of the year, so that it would bring forth nothing, no matter how much care was bestowed upon it?

We must remember that the people who invented these stories really believed that the earth produced grain and fruit because some goddess bestowed upon it her care.  They even fancied, sometimes, as they entered their fields, that they saw Ceres, with her dragon-car and her crown of wheat ears, vanishing before them.  And they did not say, during winter months, “The ground is hard and frozen, and thus cannot give food to the plants;” or, “The seed must lie underground for a time before it can send its roots down and its leaves up, and bring forth fruit.”  They said, “Mother Ceres is neglecting the earth.”