FullReads

I have reserved to the last what is perhaps the daintiest treatment of this subject in classical literature, the account of it which Ovid gives in the Fasti–a kind of Roman Calendar–for the seventh of April, the day of the games of Ceres. He tells over again the old story, with much of which, he says, the reader will be already familiar; but he has something also of his own to add to it, which the reader will hear for the first time; and, like one of those old painters who, in depicting a scene of Christian history, drew from their own fancy or experience its special setting and accessories, he translates the story into something very different from the Homeric hymn. The writer of the Homeric hymn had made Celeus a king, and represented the scene at Eleusis in a fair palace, like the Venetian painters who depict the persons of the Holy Family with royal ornaments. Ovid, on the other hand, is more like certain painters of the early Florentine school, who represent the holy persons amid the more touching circumstances of humble life; and the special something of his own which he adds, is a pathos caught from homely things, not without a delightful, just perceptible, shade of humour even, so rare in such work. All the mysticism has disappeared; but, instead, we trace something of that “worship of sorrow,” which has been sometimes supposed to have had no place in classical religious sentiment. In Ovid’s well-finished elegiacs, Persephone’s flower-gathering, the Anthology, reaches its utmost delicacy; but I give the following episode for the sake of its pathetic expression.

“After many wanderings Ceres was come to Attica. There, in the utmost dejection, for the first time, she sat down to rest on a bare stone, which the people of Attica still call the stone of sorrow. For many days she remained there motionless, under the open sky, heedless of the rain and of the frosty moonlight. Places have their fortunes; and what is now the illustrious town of Eleusis was then the field of an old man named Celeus. He was carrying home a load of acorns, and wild berries shaken down from the brambles, and dry wood for burning on the hearth; his little daughter was leading two goats home from the hills; and at home there was a little boy lying sick in his cradle. ‘Mother,’ said the little girl–and the goddess was moved at the name of mother–‘what do you, all alone, in this solitary place?’ The old man stopped too, in spite of his heavy burden, and bade her take shelter in his cottage, though it was but a little one. But at first she refused to come; she looked like an old woman, and an old woman’s coif confined her hair; and as the man still urged her, she said to him, ‘Heaven bless you; and may children always be yours! My daughter has been stolen from me. Alas! how much happier is your lot than mine’; and, though weeping is impossible for the gods, as she spoke, a bright drop, like a tear, fell into her bosom. Soft-hearted, the little girl and the old man weep together. And after that the good man said, ‘Arise! despise not the shelter of my little home; so may the daughter whom you seek be restored to you.’ ‘Lead me,’ answered the goddess; ‘you have found out the secret of moving me;’ and she arose from the stone, and followed the old man; and as they went he told her of the sick child at home–how he is restless with pain, and cannot sleep. And she, before entering the little cottage, gathered from the untended earth the soothing and sleep-giving poppy; and as she gathered it, it is said that she forgot her vow, and tasted of the seeds, and broke her long fast, unaware. As she came through the door, she saw the house full of trouble, for now there was no more hope of life for the sick boy. She saluted the mother, whose name was Metaneira, and humbly kissed the lips of the child, with her own lips; then the paleness left its face, and suddenly the parents see the strength returning to its body; so great is the force that comes from the divine mouth. And the whole family was full of joy–the mother and the father and the little girl; they were the whole household.* [12]