despite my grief beneath the earth, in his golden chariot; and shrilly
did I cry. This all is true that I tell thee."

So the livelong day in oneness of heart did they cheer each other with
love, and their minds ceased from sorrow, and great gladness did either
win from other. Then came to them Hekate of the fair wimple, and often
did she kiss the holy daughter of Demeter, and from that day was her
queenly comrade and handmaiden; but to them for a messenger did
far-seeing Zeus of the loud thunder-peal send fair-tressed Rhea to bring
dark-mantled Demeter among the Gods, with pledge of what honour she might
choose among the Immortals. He vowed that her daughter, for the third
part of the revolving year, should dwell beneath the murky gloom, but for
the other two parts she should abide with her mother and the other gods.

Thus he spake, and the Goddess disobeyed not the commands of Zeus.
Swiftly she sped down from the peaks of Olympus, and came to fertile
Rarion; fertile of old, but now no longer fruitful; for fallow and
leafless it lay, and hidden was the white barley grain by the device of
fair-ankled Demeter. None the less with the growing of the Spring the
land was to teem with tall ears of corn, and the rich furrows were to be
heavy with corn, and the corn to be bound in sheaves. There first did
she land from the unharvested ether, and gladly the Goddesses looked on
each other, and rejoiced in heart, and thus first did Rhea of the fair
wimple speak to Demeter:

"Hither, child; for he calleth thee, far-seeing Zeus, the lord of the
deep thunder, to come among the Gods, and has promised thee such honours
as thou wilt, and hath decreed that thy child, for the third of the
rolling year, shall dwell beneath the murky gloom, but the other two
parts with her mother and the rest of the Immortals. So doth he promise
that it shall be and thereto nods his head; but come, my child, obey, and
be not too unrelenting against the Son of Cronos, the lord of the dark
cloud. And anon do thou increase the grain that bringeth life to men."

So spake she, and Demeter of the fair garland obeyed. Speedily she sent
up the grain from the rich glebe, and the wide earth was heavy with
leaves and flowers: and she hastened, and showed the thing to the kings,
the dealers of doom; to Triptolemus and Diocles the charioteer, and
mighty Eumolpus, and Celeus the leader of the people; she showed them the
manner of her rites, and taught them he