Thirsty at last by long fatigue she grows, But meets no spring, no riv’let near her flows: Then looking round, a lowly cottage spies, Smoking among the trees, and thither hies. The goddess knocking at the little door, ’Twas open’d by a woman old and poor, Who, when she begg’d for water, gave her ale Brew’d long, but well preserved from being stale. The goddess drank: a chuffy lad was by, Who saw the liquor with a grudging eye, And grinning cries, “She’s greedy more than dry.”
Ceres, offended at his foul grimace, Flung what she had not drunk into his face. The sprinklings speckle where they hit the skin, And a long tail does from his body spin; His arms are turn’d to legs, and, lest his size Should make him mischievous, and he might rise Against mankind, diminutives his frame Less than a lizard, but in shape the same. Amazed the dame the wondrous sight beheld, And weeps, and fain would touch her quondam child; Yet her approach the affrighted vermin shuns, And fast into the greatest crevice runs: A name they gave him, which the spots express’d, That rose like stars, and varied all his 1 breast.
What lands, what seas, the goddess wander’d o’er, Were long to tell; for there remain’d no more; Searching all round, her fruitless toil she mourns, And with regret to Sicily returns. At length, where Cyane now flows she came, Who could have told her, were she still the same As when she saw her daughter sink to hell; But what she knows she wants a tongue to tell; Yet this plain signal manifestly gave; The virgin’s girdle floating on a wave, As late she dropp’d it from her slender waist, When with her uncle through the deep she pass’d. Ceres the token by her grief confess’d, And tore her golden hair, and beat her breast: She knows not on what land her curse should fall, But, as ingrate, alike upbraids them all, Unworthy of her gifts; Trinacria most, Where the last steps she found of what she lost. The plough for this the vengeful goddess broke, And with one death the ox and owner struck. In vain the fallow fields the peasant tills, The seed, corrupted ere ’tis sown, she kills; The fruitful soil, that once such harvests bore, Now mocks the farmer’s care, and teems no more,
And the rich grain, which fills the furrow’d glade, Rots in the seed, or shrivels in the blade; Or too much sun burns up, or too much rain Drowns, or black blights destroy the blasted plain; Or greedy birds the new-sown seed devour; Or darnel, thistles, and a crop impure Of knotted grass, along the acres stand, And spread their thriving roots through all the land.
Then from the waves soft Arethusa rears Her head, and back she flings her dropping hairs. “O mother of the maid, whom thou so far Hast sought, of whom thou canst no tidings hear; O thou,” she cried, “who art to life a friend, Cease here thy search, and let thy labour end. Thy faithful Sicily’s a guiltless clime, And should not suffer for another’s crime; She neither knew nor could prevent the deed: Nor think that for my country thus I plead: My country’s Pisa; I’m an alien here; Yet these abodes to Elis I prefer; No clime to me so sweet, no place so dear. These springs I, Arethusa, now possess, And this my seat, O gracious goddess, bless. This island why I love, and why I cross’d Such spacious seas to reach Ortygia’s coast, To you I shall impart, when, void of care, Your heart’s at ease, and you’re more fit to hear; When on your brow no pressing sorrow sits; For gay content alone such tales admits. When through earth’s caverns I a while have roll’d My waves, I rise, and here again behold The long-lost stars; and, as I late did glide
Near Styx, Proserpina there I espied: Fear still with grief might in her face be seen; She still her loss laments: yet, made a queen, Beneath those gloomy shades her sceptre sways; And ev’n the infernal king her will obeys.”