Her words and those becoming tears mastered e’en that rude heart as Pluto first learned to feel love’s longings. The tears he wiped away with his murky cloak, quieting her sad grief with these soothing words: “Cease, Proserpine, to vex thy heart with gloomy cares and causeless fear. A prouder sceptre shall be thine, nor shalt thou face marriage with a husband unworthy of thee. I am that scion of Saturn whose will the framework of the world obeys, whose power stretches through the limitless void. Think not thou hast lost the light of day; other stars are mine and other courses; a purer light shalt thou see and wonder rather at Elysium’s sun and blessed habitants. There a richer age, a golden race has its home, and we possess for ever what men win but once. Soft meads shall fail thee not, and ever-blooming flowers, such as thy Henna ne’er produced, breathe to gentler zephyrs. There is, moreover, a precious tree in the leafy groves whose curving branches gleam with living ore--a tree consecrate to thee. Thou shalt be queen of blessed autumn and ever enriched with golden fruit. Nay more; whatsoe’er the limpid air embraces, whatever earth nourishes, the salt seas sweep, the rivers roll, or the marsh-lands feed, all living things alike shall yield them to thy sway, all, I say, that dwell beneath the orb of the moon that is the seventh of the planets and in its ethereal journey separates things mortal from the deathless * * * * * Page 340 sub tua purpurei venient vestigia reges 300 deposito luxu turba cum paupere mixti (omnia mors aequat); tu damnatura nocentes, tu requiem latura piis; te iudice sontes improba cogentur vitae commissa fateri. accipe Lethaeo famulas cum gurgite Parcas, 305 sitque ratum quodcumque voles.” Haec fatus ovantes exhortatur equos et Tartara mitior intrat. conveniunt animae, quantas violentior Auster decutit arboribus frondes aut nubibus imbres colligit aut frangit fluctus aut torquet harenas; 310 cunctaque praecipiti stipantur saecula cursu insignem visura nurum. mox ipse serenus ingreditur facili passus mollescere risu dissimilisque sui. dominis intrantibus ingens adsurgit Phlegethon: flagrantibus hispida rivis 315 barba madet totoque fluunt incendia vultu. Occurrunt properi lecta de plebe ministri: pars altos revocant currus frenisque solutis vertunt emeritos ad pascua nota iugales; pars aulaea tenent; alii praetexere ramis 320 limina et in thalamum cultas extollere vestes. reginam casto cinxerunt agmine matres Elysiae teneroque levant sermone timores et sparsos religant crines et vultibus addunt flammea sollicitum praevelatura pudorem. 325 Pallida laetatur regio gentesque sepultae