CHAPTER V

Underworld, until it is once more time to resume her growth-assisting labours. We have here good grounds for positing the existence of a popular myth which would seem to have recounted how the divine lovers dwelt happily in Tamoanchan until Xochiquetzal was forced to quit the blest abode or was carried off, and was sought for by the Sun-god, a myth like that of Proserpine or Orpheus. It may refer to the sun seeking the flower, or may have a bearing upon the myth of Ixnextli, a variant of Xochiquetzal, who was expelled from Paradise, and of whom the interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says: “Ixnextli, who is the same as Eve, is always weeping, her eyes dim with ashes,