He is one of the children in mythology who never grows up and never grows any wiser. He carries about with him always a bow and a quiver full of arrows, which he shoots right into the hearts of people and fills them with a love so overwhelming for some one they have seen that they will even carry that person off against his or her will, as this present story shows. As soon as Aphrodite saw Pluto, she exclaimed: “My son, take thy darts which subdue all, even Zeus himself, and send one into the breast of yonder dark monarch, who rules the realm of Tartarus. Dost thou not see that even in heaven some despise our power? Athēne and Artemis defy us; and there is that daughter of Demeter, who threatens to follow their example. Now, if thou regardest thine own interest or mine, join these two in one.” The boy selected his sharpest and truest arrow, and sped it right to the heart of Pluto. Now in the vale of Enna is a lake embowered in woods, where Spring reigns perpetual. Here Persephone (Roman, Proserpina) was playing with her companions, gathering lilies and violets, when the god Pluto saw her. He immediately loved her, and, without waiting to find out whether she returned his love or not, he caught her up and carried her off. She screamed for help to her mother and her companions, but Pluto urged on his steeds and outdistanced pursuit. When he reached the river Cyane, it opposed his passage; whereupon he struck the bank with his trident, and the earth opened and gave him a passage to Tartarus.