Amores III.10

The time for Ceres' yearly festival is come; my love is in retreat, and rests alone, O golden Ceres, thy delicate tresses crowned with ears of wheat, why dost thou with thy festival put ban upon our joys?

Thee, goddess, do people everywhere call giver of gifts, nor is there goddess less envies men their blessings. Before thee, neither did shaggy countryman parch the corn, nor known upon the earth was the name of threshing-floor, but the oak, first of our oracles, brought forth the acorn; this, and the herb that sprang from the tender turf, were his food. 'Twas Ceres first taught the seed to swell in the fields, and cut with sickle the coloured locks of the corn; 'twas she first made the steer bend neck to the yoke, and turned with the share's curved tooth the ancient mould.

Does any think this a goddess to joy in the tears of lovers, and to see fit worship in the torments of lying apart? However much she loves her fruitful fields, she is yet no simple rustic, nor has heart void of love. The Cretans will be my witness — and the Cretans are not wholly false. Crete is the land proud of the nurture of Jove. 'Twas there that he who sways the starry heights of the world drank in the milk with the tender mouth of a little child.

We have great faith in their witness — witness approved by their foster-son. Ceres herself, I think, will own to my impeachment. Under Cretan Ida the goddess had seen Iasius with sure hand piercing the wild beast's side. She looked on him, and when her tender heart had caught the fire, she was victim now of shame, and now again of love. Her shame was overcome by love; you might see the furrows of the field grown dry and the sown grain returning with scantest part of itself. When the well-wielded mattock had wrought upon the acre, and the hooked share had broken the dour glebe, and the seed had gone forth equal over the broad plowed fields, the deluded husbandman had vowed in vain. The goddess potent over increase dallied in the deep woods; fallen from her long tresses were the woven spikes of corn. Crete only was fruitful with fecund year; wherever the goddess had bent her step, all was rich with the garner; Ida, the very home of forests, was white with harvest, and the wild boar reaped the grain in the woodland. Minos, giver of laws, wished for seasons ever like this, wished that Ceres' love might long endure.

Because lying apart was sad for thee, O golden Goddess, must I now suffer thus on thy holy day? Why must I be sad, when for thee thy daughter is found,I and reigns o'er realms of lesser state than only Juno's? A festal day calls for love, and songs, and wine; these are the gifts that are fitly tendered the gods our masters.