u
that lookest down with thy rays from the holy air upon all the land and
sea, do thou tell me truly concerning my dear child, if thou didst behold
her; who it is that hath gone off and ravished her away from me against
her will, who is it of gods or mortal men?"

So spake she, and Hyperionides answered her:

"Daughter of fair-tressed Rheia, Queen Demeter, thou shalt know it; for
greatly do I pity and revere thee in thy sorrow for thy slim-ankled
child. There is none other guilty of the Immortals but Zeus himself that
gathereth the clouds, who gave thy daughter to Hades, his own brother, to
be called his lovely wife; and Hades has ravished her away in his
chariot, loudly shrilling, beneath the dusky gloom. But, Goddess, do
thou cease from thy long lamenting. It behoves not thee thus vainly to
cherish anger unassuaged. No unseemly lord for thy daughter among the
Immortals is Aidoneus, the lord of many, thine own brother and of one
seed with thee, and for his honour he won, since when was made the
threefold division, to be lord among those with whom he dwells."

So spake he, and called upon his horses, and at his call they swiftly
bore the fleet chariot on like long-winged birds. But grief more dread
and bitter fell upon her, and wroth thereafter was she with Cronion that
hath dark clouds for his dwelling. She held apart from the gathering of
the Gods and from tall Olympus, and disfiguring her form for many days
she went among the cities and rich fields of men. Now no man knew her
that looked on her, nor no deep-bosomed woman, till she came to the
dwelling of Celeus, who then was Prince of fragrant Eleusis. There sat
she at the wayside in sorrow of heart, by the Maiden Well whence the
townsfolk were wont to draw water. In the shade she sat; above her grew
a thick olive-tree; and in fashion she was like an ancient crone who
knows no more of child-bearing and the gifts of Aphrodite, the lover of
garlands. Such she was as are the nurses of the children of
doom-pronouncing kings. Such are the housekeepers in their echoing
halls.

Now the daughters of Celeus beheld her as they came to fetch the fair-
flowing water, to carry thereof in bronze vessels to their father's home.
Four were they, like unto goddesses, all in the bloom of youth,
Callidice, and Cleisidice, and winsome Demo, and Callithoe the eldest of
them all, nor did they know her, for the Gods are hard to be known by
mortals, but they stood near her and