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Here is a partial list of those whose names we do not find: Minerva, Diana, Venus, Fortuna, Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Apollo, Mercury, Dis, Proserpina, Aesculapius, the Magna Mater. And yet their absence is not surprising when we realise that almost all of the gods in this list represent phases of life with which Rome in this early period was absolutely unacquainted.
"Ah," said Proserpina, "you should have tried to make me like you before carrying me off. And the best thing you can do now is to let me go again. Then I might remember you sometimes, and think that you were as kind as you knew how to be. Perhaps, too, one day or other, I might come back, and pay you a visit." "No, no," answered Pluto, with his gloomy smile, "I will not trust you for that.
"Come! Will not you like to ride a little way with me, in my beautiful chariot?" But Proserpina was so alarmed that she wished for nothing but to get out of his reach. And no wonder. The stranger did not look remarkably good-natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an earthquake under ground as anything else.
"I offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that are under the earth; and you treat me as if I were doing you an injury. The one thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid, to run upstairs and down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile. And this is what you must do for King Pluto." "Never!" answered Proserpina, looking as miserable as she could.
"Proserpina, Proserpina did you call her?" answered Phoebus, trying to remember. He had so many pleasant ideas in his head that he sometimes forgot what had happened no longer ago than yesterday. "Ah yes! I remember now a very lovely little girl. I am happy to tell you that I did see Proserpina not many days ago. You may be quite easy about her. She is safe and in good hands."
Still, I think there may be a few that will rather like this vein, possibly prefer it to a livelier one, serious young men, and young women generally, in life's roseate parenthesis from years of age to inclusive. Another privilege of talking is to misquote. Of course it wasn't Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair, but Iris.
Oh, we shall be very good friends, and you will find me more agreeable than you expect, when once we get out of this troublesome sunshine." "Let me go home!" cried Proserpina "let me go home!" "My home is better than your mother's," answered King Pluto.
Because she was the goddess of the wheat and the fruits, the crops upon the land of King Celeus, while she was there, were very wonderful. In the land near Mount Aetna, where Proserpina had been lost, no rain fell and no corn nor apples grew. Juno sent Iris down to earth to beg of Ceres to give rain to the suffering people of her own home.
"Does the earth disobey me?" exclaimed Mother Ceres, indignantly. "Does it presume to be green, when I have bidden it be barren, until my daughter shall be restored to my arms?" "Then open your arms, dear mother," cried a well-known voice, "and take your little daughter into them." And Proserpina came running, and flung herself upon her mother's bosom.
She thought there was a rumbling noise right below her feet, and she wondered if the roots went down to some dragon's cave. Then she tried once again, and up came the bush so quickly that Proserpina nearly fell backwards. There she stood, holding the stem in her hand and looking at the big hole which its roots had left in the earth.
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