The Sorrow of Mother Nature Ceres
In the island of Sicily, high up among the mountains, there was a delightful valley, called the valley of Enna. It was from time to time that a human being, even a shepherd, climbed so high, yet the goats, being ready to move by the steepest and most dangerous ways, over the roughest rocks, knew well what soft , sweet grass grew there. Sheep, as well, and sometimes wild swine, discovered their way to this spot.
Not another mountain valley anyplace was very similar to this one. It was never gone to by any of the winds with the exception of Zephyrus, who was always mellow and delicate. The grass was always green and the flowers were always in blossom. There were shady forests on each side, and innumerable fountains of shimmering water. It would have been elusive a pleasanter spot.
This valley of Enna was the home of Ceres, the mother earth, one of the savvies of the goddesses. Actually, the valley owed its magnificence to the nearness of Ceres, and the magnificent vegetation which secured the entire island of Sicily was because of her impact, for she was the goddess of all that becomes out of the earth, and knew the mystery of the springing wheat and the ripening natural products.
She viewed over the flowers, the lambs in the fields, and the young children. The springs of water which originated from shrouded places of the earth, were hers. One day Proserpine, the little daughter of Ceres, was playing in the knolls of Enna. Her hair was as yellow as gold, and her cheeks had the sensitive pink of an apple bloom.
She appeared like a flower among alternate flowers of the valley. She, and the daughters of the valley-nymphs, who were children of about her own age, had removed their shoes and were running about on the soft grass in their exposed feet. They were as cheerful as the little lambs and kids. Before long they started to assemble the flowers that grew so thick on each side, violets, hyacinths, lilies, and enormous purple irises.
They filled their bushel, and afterward their dresses, and wound long splashes of wild roses around their shoulders. All of a sudden, Proserpine saw a flower which influenced her to overlook everything else. This flower appeared to be an interesting, new sort of narcissus. It was of colossal size, and its one flower stalk held no less than a hundred blossoms.
Its aroma was powerful to the point that it filled the whole island, and may be noticed level out at sea. Proserpine called to her mates to come and see this great flower, and afterward she noticed, out of the blue, that she was alone, for she had meandered starting with one flower then onto the next till she had left the other children far behind.
Running rapidly forward to pick this abnormal bloom, she saw that its stalk was spotted like a snake, and expected that it may be poisonous. In any case, it was far excessively lovely a flower, making it impossible to be left independent from anyone else in the glade, and she along these lines attempted to cull it. When she found that she couldn't break the stalk, she endeavored to pull the entire plant up by the roots.
All without a moment's delay, the black soil around the plant released, and Proserpine heard a thundering underneath the ground. At that point the earth all of a sudden opened, an incredible black cavern showed up, and out from its profundities sprang four eminent black horses, drawing a golden chariot. In the chariot sat a king with a crown on his head, yet under the crown was the gloomiest face at any point seen.
At the point when this weird king saw Proserpine remaining there by the flower, excessively terrified, making it impossible to flee, he checked his horses for a moment and, bowing forward, grabbed the poor child from the ground and placed her on the seat close by. At that point he threw together his horses and headed out at an enraged speed. Proserpine, as yet holding fast to her flowers, shouted for her mother.
Helios, the sun-god, perceived how the desolate confronted king had stolen Proserpine away, and Hecate, who sat close by in her cave, heard the shout and the sound of wheels. Nobody else had any doubt of what had happened. Ceres was far away over the seas in another nation, overlooking the social occasion in of the harvests. She heard Proserpine's shout, and like a sea-bird when it hears the troubled cry of its young, came hurrying home over the water.
She filled the valley with the sound of her calling, yet nobody offered an explanation to the name of Proserpine. The weird flower had vanished. A couple of roses lay scattered on the grass, and close them were a child's impressions. Ceres felt beyond any doubt that these were the hints of Proserpine's little uncovered feet, yet she couldn't tail them far, on the grounds that a group of swine had meandered that way and left a disarray of hoofprints behind them.
Ceres could take in nothing about her daughter from the nymphs. She conveyed her own detachment, the enormous white crane that brings the rain; yet despite the fact that he could fly quickly and exceptionally far on his solid wings, he brought back no news of Proserpine. When it grew dark, the goddess lit two lights at the flaring summit of Mount Enna, and proceeded with her search.
She meandered up and down for nine days and nine nights. On the tenth night, when it was about morning, she met Hecate, who was conveying a light in her grasp, as though she, as well, were looking for something. Hecate told Ceres how she had heard Proserpine shout, and had heard the sound of wheels, yet had seen nothing.
At that point she ran with the goddess to ask Helios, the sun-god, regardless of whether he had not seen what happened that day, for the sun-god goes around the entire world, and must see everything. Ceres discovered Helios sitting in his chariot, prepared to drive his horses over the sky. He held the blazing animals in for a minute, while he told Ceres that Pluto, the king of the underworld, had stolen her daughter and had diverted her to live with him in his dark palace.
At the point when Ceres heard this, she realized that Proserpine was lost to her, and she avoided alternate gods and shrouded herself in the dark places of the earth. She jumped at the chance to avoid the earth's kin and also from the gods, for wherever she went, she was certain to see some cheerful mother with her children around, and the sight made her vibe lonely. She sometimes begrudged the poorest peasants, or even the little bird-mothers in the trees.
One day she sat down by the side of the road, close to a well, in the shade of an olive tree. While she was staying there, the four daughters of Celeus, conveying golden pitchers on their shoulders, descended from their father's palace to get water. Seeing a tragic old woman sitting by the well, they addressed her kindlily. Not wishing them to realize that she was a goddess, Ceres told the four young princesses that she had been diverted from her home by privateers, and had gotten away from being sold for a slave by fleeing the moment that the privateer's ship achieved the shore.
"I am old, and an outsider to everyone here," she stated, "however I am not very old to work for my bread. I could keep house, or deal with a young child." Hearing this, the four sisters ran eagerly back to the palace, and requested that consent carry the weird woman home with them. Their mother told them that they may engage her as nurse for their little sibling, Demophoon.
In this manner Ceres turned into a detainee of the house of Celeus, and the little Demophoon thrived superbly under her care. Ceres soon figured out how to love the human baby who was her charge, and she wished to make him immortal. She knew just a single way of doing this, and that was to bathe him with ambrosia, and afterward, one night after another, place him in the fire until the point that his mortal parts ought to be consumed with smoldering heat.
Consistently she did this, without saying a word to anyone. Under this treatment Demophoon was becoming brilliantly godlike, however one night, his mother being conscious late, and hearing somebody moving about, closed the window ornaments aside a practically nothing, and peeped out. There, before the fireplace, where an awesome fire was consuming, stood the bizarre nurse, with Demophoon in her arms. The mother watched peacefully until the point that she saw Ceres place the child in the fire, at that point she gave a scream of alert.
The scream broke the spell. Ceres took Demophoon away from the fire and put him on the floor. At that point she told the trembling mother that she had intended to make her child immortal, however that now this couldn't be. He would need to develop old and bite the dust like different mortals. At that point, diverting from her blue hood, she abruptly lost her aged appearance, and all without a moment's delay looked extremely fabulous and excellent.
Her hair, which tumbled down finished her shoulders, was yellow, similar to the ready grain in the fields. Demophoon's mother knew by these signs that her child's nurse must be the colossal Ceres, however she saw her no more, for the goddess went out into the dark night.
After this Ceres proceeded with her lonely meandering, not minding where she went. One day, as she stooped to drink from a spring, Abas, a freckled kid who remained close, ridiculed her since she looked tragic and old. All of a sudden he saw Ceres stand up straight, with a look that alarmed him. At that point he felt himself becoming smaller and smaller, until he contracted into a little spotted waternewt, when he made scramble to shroud himself away under a stone.
Not at all like Abas, a large portion of the general population whom Ceres met with felt frustrated about her. One day, while she was perched on a stone by the side of a mountain road in Greece, feeling extremely sad, she heard a childish voice say, "Mother, would you say you are not afraid to remain all alone here on the mountain?"
Ceres looked into, satisfied to hear the word "mother," and saw a little peasant girl, remaining close to two goats that she had driven down from the mountainpastures. "No, my child," said she, "I am not afraid." Just at that point, out from among the trees came the little girl's father, conveying a heap of firewood on his shoulder. He welcomed Ceres to go to his cottage for the night. Ceres at first can't, yet finally acknowledged the welcome.
"You are more joyful than I," said Ceres, as the three strolled toward the cottage. "You have your little daughter with you, however I have lost mine." "Oh! I have distress enough," said the peasant. "I expect that my lone son, little Triptolemus, lies kicking the bucket at home." "Let us trust that he may yet be cured," said Ceres, and stooping, she accumulated a modest bunch of poppies.
Before long they came into the little cottage, where they found the mother beside herself with anguish for her kid. Ceres twisted around the child and kissed him softly on the two cheeks. As she did as such, the poppies in her grasp brushed daintily against his face. At that point his moans stopped, and the child fell into a peaceful rest.
In the morning Triptolemus woke solid and well, and when Ceres called her winged dragons and headed out through the mists, she left a glad and appreciative family behind her.
Sources:
https://www.greekmythology.com
http://www.talesbeyondbelief.com