espect for the mother, {still} let the daughter
move her father; and I pray thee not to have the less regard for her,
because she was brought forth by my travail. Lo! my daughter, so long
sought for, has been found by me at last; if you call it finding[64] to
be more certain of one's loss; or if you call it finding, to know where
she is. I will endure {the fact}, that she has been carried off, if he
will only restore her. For, indeed, a daughter of thine is not deserving
of a ravisher for a husband, if now my own daughter is." Jupiter
replied, "Thy daughter is a pledge and charge, in common to me and thee;
but, should it please thee only to give right names to things, this deed
is not an injury, but it is {a mark of} affection, nor will he, as a
son-in-law, be any disgrace to us, if thou only, Goddess, shouldst give
thy consent. Although other {recommendations} were wanting, how great a
thing is it to be the brother of Jupiter! and besides, is it not because
other points are not wanting, and because he is not my inferior, except
by the accident {of his allotment of the Stygian abodes}? But if thy
eagerness is so great for their separation, let Proserpine return to
heaven; still upon this fixed condition, if she has touched no food
there with her lips; for thus has it been provided by the law of the
Destinies."

"{Thus} he spoke; still Ceres is {now} resolved to fetch away her
daughter; but not so do the Fates permit. For the damsel had broke her
fast; and, while in her innocence she was walking about the
finely-cultivated garden, she had plucked a pomegranate[65] from the
bending tree, and had chewed in her mouth seven grains[66] taken from
the pale rind. Ascalaphus[67] alone, of all persons, had seen this, whom
Orphne, by no means the most obscure among the Nymphs of Avernus,[68] is
said once to have borne to her own Acheron within {his} dusky caves. He
beheld {this}, and cruelly prevented her return by his discovery. The
Queen of Erebus grieved, and changed the informer into an accursed bird,
and turned his head, sprinkled with the waters of Phlegethon,[69] into a
beak, and feathers, and great eyes. He, {thus} robbed of his own
{shape}, is clothed with tawny wings, his head becomes larger, his long
nails bend inwards, and with difficulty can he move the wings that
spring through his sluggish arms. He becomes an obscene bird, the
foreboder of approaching woe, a lazy owl, a direful omen to mortals.

"But he, by his dis