s was a burning river of
the Infernal Regions; which received its name from the Greek word
+phlego+, 'to burn.']

[Footnote 70: _Acheloues._--Ver. 552. The Sirens were said to be
the daughters of the river Acheloues and of one of the Muses,
either Calliope, Melpomene, or Terpsichore.]

EXPLANATION.

Apollodorus says, that the terms of the treaty respecting Proserpine
were, that she should stay on earth nine months with Ceres, and three
with Pluto, in the Infernal Regions. Other writers divide the time
equally; six months to Ceres, and six to Pluto. They also tell us that
the story of Ascalaphus is founded on the fact, that he was one of the
courtiers of Pluto, who, having advised his master to carry away
Proserpine, did all that lay in his power to obstruct the endeavors of
Ceres, and hinder the restoration of her daughter, on which Proserpine
had him privately destroyed; to screen which deed the Fable was
invented; the pernicious counsels which he gave his master being
signified by the seeds of the pomegranate. It has also been suggested
that the story of his change into an owl was based on the circumstance
that he was the overseer of the mines of Pluto, in which he perished,
removed from the light of day. Perhaps he was there crushed to death
by the fall of a rock, which caused the poets to say that Proserpine
had covered him with a large stone, as Apollodorus informs us, who
also says that it was Ceres who inflicted the punishment upon him. The
name 'Ascalaphus' signifies, 'one that breaks stones,' and, very
probably, that name was only given him to denote his employment. Some
writers state that he was changed into a lizard, which the Greeks call
'Ascalabos,' and, probably, the resemblance between the names gave
rise to this version of the story.

Probably, the story of the Nymph Cyane reproaching Pluto with his
treatment of Proserpine, and being thereupon changed by him into a
fountain, has no other foundation than the propinquity of the place
where Pluto's emissaries embarked to a stream of that name near the
city of Syracuse; which was, perhaps, overflowing at that time, and
may have impeded their passage.

Ovid, probably, feigned that the Sirens begged the Gods to change them
into birds, that they might seek for Proserpine, on the ground of some
existing tradition, that living on the coast of Italy, near the island
of Sici