into the Lemnian land; all day he sat in the palace with her,
watching her, or listening to her singing, or to the long, fierce
speeches that she used to make to her nurse or to the four
maidens who attended her.

In the evening they would gather in the hall of the palace,
the Argonauts and the Lemnian maidens who were their comrades.
There were dances, and always Jason and Hypsipyle danced
together. All the Lemnian maidens sang beautifully, but none of
them had any stories to tell.

And when the Argonauts would have stories told, the Lemnian
maidens would forbid any tale that was about a god or a hero;
only stories that were about the goddesses or about some maiden
would they let be told.

Orpheus, who knew the histories of the gods, would have told
them many stories, but the only story of his that they would come
from the dance to listen to was a story of the goddesses, of
Demeter and her daughter Persephone.



Demeter And Persephone

I

Once when Demeter was going through the world, giving men
grain to be sown in their fields, she heard a cry that came to
her from across high mountains and that mounted up to her from