Then fair Persephone answered her august mother: "Behold, I shall tell
thee all the truth without fail. I leaped up for joy when boon Hermes,
the swift messenger, came from my father Cronides and the other heavenly
Gods, with the message that I was to return out of Erebus, that so thou
mightest behold me, and cease thine anger and dread wrath against the
Immortals. Thereon Hades himself compelled me to taste of a sweet
pomegranate seed against my will. And now I will tell thee how, through
the crafty device of Cronides my father, he ravished me, and bore me away
beneath the hollows of the earth. All that thou askest I will tell thee.
We were all playing in the lovely meadows, Leucippe and Phaino, and
Electra, and Ianthe, and Melite, and Iache, and Rhodeia, and Callirhoe,
and Melobosis, and Tuche, and flower-faced Ocyroe, and Chraesis, and
Ianeira, and Acaste, and Admete, and Rhodope, and Plouto, and winsome
Calypso, and Styx, and Urania, and beautiful Galaxaure. We were playing
there, and plucking beautiful blossoms with our hands; crocuses mingled,
and iris, and hyacinth, and roses, and lilies, a marvel to behold, and
narcissus, that the wide earth bare, a wile for my undoing. Gladly was I
gathering them when the earth gaped beneath, and therefrom leaped the
mighty Prince, the host of many guests, and he bare me against my will
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