Metamorphoses: 5.3 Summary & Analysis

The Muses’ song first introduces Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and plenty. Then the song explains how the island of Sicily is built on the back of one of the fallen giants who had tried to usurp heaven. The giant vomits lava and flame and causes earthquakes. Fearing that the giant will erupt the earth, Pluto—the lord of Hades—leaves his underground realm in his chariot to inspect the land.

As Pluto is inspecting, Venus catches sight of him. Venus tells her son Cupid to shoot Pluto with one of his arrows and make him fall in love with Ceres’s daughter. She is angry that none of the female goddesses worship her and wants to overpower Ceres before she also scorns Venus. At his mother’s request, Cupid strikes Pluto in the heart with an arrow.

One day, Ceres’s daughter Proserpina is picking flowers beside a shady lake. Pluto sees her and falls in love with her. Impatient with desire, he snatches her, causing her picked flowers to fall. A nymph recognizes Ceres’s daughter in Pluto’s chariot and rises from her pool to rebuke him for abducting Proserpina instead of asking her mother for permission to marry her. The nymph tries to bar Pluto’s way, but he hurls his staff into the pool and opens a path to Hades. The disempowered nymph loses her form and becomes water.

Ceres searches anxiously for her daughter far and wide. At last, she stops at a cottage to beg a glass of water. A kind woman brings her a glass, but as Ceres is drinking, the woman’s son jeers at her greediness. Furious, Ceres turns the boy into a spotted newt. As she returns discouraged to Sicily, she notices Proserpina’s cloak in the nymph’s pool. Ceres tears at her hair in grief and curses the whole of Sicily, making it go barren of crops.

Another water nymph—Arethusa—rises from her pool and begs Ceres not to take her anger out on the land. The nymph tells Ceres that she recently traveled to Hades and spotted Proserpina there. Although Proserpina looked sad and afraid, she was queen of the underworld. Still in grief, Ceres goes to heaven to visit Jupiter. She begs him to rescue Proserpina—their daughter—from her kidnapper husband.

Jupiter explains to Ceres that Pluto has not committed a crime but an act of love. Even though he is lord of Hades, Pluto is Jupiter’s brother, and therefore a worthy match for Proserpina. However, Jupiter says that he will rescue Proserpina as long as she hasn’t eaten any food yet in Hades. Unfortunately, however, Prosperina has eaten seeds from a pomegranate tree in Hades and was observed by a nymph who tattled on her. Furious, Ceres turns the tattler into an ugly bird.

Similar to the tattling nymph, Proserpina’s friends are given bird’s wings and feet. However, they requested the gods for these so they could fly over the ocean to worship Proserpina’s memory. The gods heeded their wish and turned them into Sirens—birds with human faces. Jupiter decides to settle the conflict between Pluto and Ceres by allowing Proserpina to split her time between Hades and earth. In Hades, she is always sad, but on land, she is radiantly happy.