"I
certainly wish you success, and regret that my own affairs are so
immediately pressing that I cannot have the pleasure of attending you.
Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you
the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway;
for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and
those, you know, are forbidden things in Pluto's kingdom."
"Ah, Phoebus," said Ceres, with bitter meaning in her words, "you have
a harp instead of a heart. Farewell."
"Will not you stay a moment," asked Phoebus, "and hear me turn the
pretty and touching story of Proserpina into extemporary verses?"
But Ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with Hecate.
Phoebus (who, as I have told you, was an exquisite poet) forthwith
began to make an ode about the poor mother's grief; and, if we were to
judge of his sensibility by this beautiful production, he must have
been endowed with a very tender heart. But when a poet gets into the
habit of using his heartstrings to make chords for his lyre, he may
thrum upon them as much as he will, without any great pain to himself.
Accordingly, though Phoebus sang a very sad song, he was as merry all
the while as were the sunbeams amid which he dwelt.
Poor Mother Ceres had now found out what had become of her daughter, but
was not a whit happier than before.
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