487Then the beloved of Alpheus raised her head from the Elean waters and pushed her dripping hair back from her brow to her ears and said: 'O mother of the maiden sought through all the world, and mother of the crops, cease your immense labours, and do not be violently angry with the land that is faithful to you. 492The land deserved nothing, and opened unwillingly to the abduction. 493Nor am I a suppliant for my own country: I came here as a stranger; 494Pisa is my country, and from Elis I draw my origin; 495I dwell in Sicania as a foreigner, but this land is dearer to me than any soil: I, Arethusa, now have this as my home, this as my abode: preserve it, most gentle one.
498Why I was moved from my place and am carried through the waves of so great a sea to Ortygia, a fitting hour will come for my tale, when you are relieved of your care and of happier countenance. 501The earth opens a passage and gives me a path, and, carried beneath its deepest caverns, I raise my head here and see the stars I had grown unused to. 504So while I glide beneath the earth in the Stygian stream, I saw your Proserpina there with my own eyes: sad indeed, and with a face not yet free from fear, but a queen nonetheless, but the greatest of the dark world, but still the powerful consort of the tyrant of the underworld.' 509At the words she heard, the mother stood stunned as if turned to stone, and for a long time was like one thunderstruck.
510And when her heavy bewilderment was driven out by heavy grief, she goes out in her chariot to the regions of the upper air. 512There, her whole face clouded, her hair dishevelled, she stood before Jupiter, full of resentment, and said, 'I have come as a suppliant to you, Jupiter, for my offspring, and for yours. 515If the mother has no favour with you, let the daughter move her father, and let your care for her not be, I pray, the less because she was born from my womb. 518See, my daughter, long sought, is at last found by me, if you call it finding to lose her more surely, or if you call it finding to know where she is.
520That she was carried off we will bear, if only he gives her back: for your daughter is not worthy of a robber for a husband, even if she is no longer my daughter.' 523Jupiter answered: 'Our daughter is a pledge and a burden shared by me with you. 524But if only we are willing to give things their true names, this deed is not an injury but love; 526nor will he be a son-in-law to shame us, if only you, goddess, are willing. 527Even if all else were lacking, what a thing it is to be the brother of Jupiter! 528What of the fact that all else is not lacking, and he yields to me only by lot?
529but if you have so great a desire to part them, Proserpina shall return to heaven, but on a fixed condition: if no food has touched her lips there; 532for so it is ordained by the covenant of the Fates.' 533He had spoken. 533But Ceres is resolved to bring her daughter out. 534The fates do not allow it, since the maiden had broken her fast and, while she wandered in her innocence in the tended gardens, had plucked a pomegranate from a bending tree and, taking seven seeds from the pale rind, had pressed them in her mouth. 538And alone of all, Ascalaphus saw it, whom Orphne, not the least known among the nymphs of Avernus, is said once to have borne to her Acheron beneath the dark woods: he saw, and by his cruel report took away her return.
543The queen of Erebus groaned, and made the informer a bird of ill omen, and, sprinkling his head with water of Phlegethon, she turned it into a beak and feathers and great eyes. 546He, lost to himself, is clothed in tawny wings, grows into a head, and his long nails curve back, and he can barely move the feathers that have sprung along his sluggish arms: and he becomes a foul bird, herald of coming grief, the sluggish owl, a dread omen for mortals. 551He, however, may seem to have deserved his punishment for his report and his tongue: but you, daughters of Achelous, whence come your birds' feathers and feet, though you bear maidens' faces?
554Is it because, when Proserpina was gathering spring flowers, you were among her companions, learned Sirens? 556After you had sought her in vain through all the world, at once, so that the seas too might feel your care, you prayed to be able to rest upon the waves with the oars of wings, and you found the gods compliant and saw your limbs suddenly turn golden with feathers. 561Yet so that your song, born to soothe the ears, and so great a gift of voice might not lose the use of the tongue, your maidens' faces and human voice remained. 564But Jupiter, mediating between his brother and his grieving sister, divides the revolving year equally.
566Now the goddess, a divinity shared by two kingdoms, spends as many months with her mother as with her husband. 568At once the aspect of her mind and of her face is changed: for the brow of the goddess, which just now could seem sad even to Dis, is joyful, as the sun, which before was covered by watery clouds, comes forth from the vanquished clouds.