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Barry Cornwall. Pluto, the king of Hades, stole Proserpine from her mother, Ceres, while she was playing in the flowery fields and bore her away to reign with him as his queen in the gloomy regions of the dead. For days the sorrowing mother wandered far and wide searching for her dearly loved child. The earth which had so long obtained her favors was neglected. The cattle died, the seed failed to germinate, there was drought, thistles and brambles were the only growth and famine threatened the people.
One day a water nymph, who heard the lament of Ceres, told her that as she had passed through the lower parts of the earth in her endeavor to escape from a too ardent lover, she had seen Proserpine reigning as the bride of the monarch there.
Ceres hastened to Jupiter and implored him to restore her daughter, promising that when she beheld her again the earth should be restored to fruitfulness, and
“At last Zeus himself
Pitying the evil that was done, sent forth
His messenger beyond the western rim
To fetch me back to earth.”
—Lewis Morris.
But the release of Proserpine was not complete. Jupiter’s law must be obeyed, but Pluto, before he let her go, persuaded her to eat a morsel of pomegranate by which he cast upon her a spell that would oblige her to return to him, for half of the year, while the other half she could spend with her mother. As soon as Proserpine returned to earth Ceres cheerfully and diligently attended to her duties and all was blessed with plenty. But when six months were gone all nature mourned and wept, for Proserpine left the bright world and returned to the darkness of Hades.
INTERPRETATION.
Pluto, “the unseen,” “the wealth giver,” greedily drew all things down to his dismal abode. Hades was a prison or storehouse containing the germs of all future harvests, and in spite of its darkness was regarded as a land of great riches. Ceres, the earth mother, expresses the gloom which falls on the earth during the cheerless months of winter. Proserpine, spring, typifies the yearly blooming of the flowers and the growth of the corn from the seed, and hence was obliged to dwell in the dismal underworld during the dark days of winter, but could return with each spring to give gladness and fertility to the mourning earth.
ART.
This group, called the “Rape of Proserpine,” the work of Bernini, is in the Villa Ludovisi, Rome. It has received much adverse criticism, but has also been greatly admired. It represents Pluto holding Proserpine in his brawny arms and, in spite of her struggles, carrying her off to Hades. In artistic excellence it does not compare with “Apollo and Daphne,” which Bernini executed much earlier in life.
