She stretched forth her hands to take the flower; thereupon
the earth opened, and the king of the great nation of the dead sprang
out with his immortal horses. He seized the unwilling girl, and bore
her away weeping, on his golden chariot. She uttered a shrill cry,
calling upon her father Zeus; but neither man nor god heard her
voice, nor even the nymphs of the meadow where she played; except
Hecate only, the daughter of Persaeus, sitting, as ever, in her cave,
half veiled with a shining veil, thinking delicate thoughts; she, and
the Sun also, heard her.
"So long as she could still see the earth, and the sky, and the sea
with the great waves moving, and the beams of the sun, and still
thought to see again her mother, and the race of the ever-living
gods, so long hope soothed her, in the midst of her grief. The peaks
of the hills and the depths of the sea echoed her cry. And the
mother heard it. A sharp pain seized her at the heart; she plucked
the veil from her hair, and cast down the blue hood from her
shoulders, and fled forth like a bird, seeking Persephone over dry
land and sea. But neither man nor god would tell her the truth; nor
did any bird come to her as a sure messenger.
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