CFIAP. xir. THE AMARANTH. 



203 



misty scenes ; and these by no means the fairest and 

 most graceful, possessing no representative character 

 to entitle them to the immortality thus conferred upon 

 them. 



The Sicilian legend of the Rape of Proserpine depicts 

 the maiden as gathering, in the meadows of Enna, the 

 snow-white lilies and the golden and crimson flowers 

 that hid the grass with a maze of dazzling brightness 

 like the fret-work of sunset clouds. Seized by Pluto 

 while engaged in this innocent amusement, she was 

 carried down to the infernal regions, with her hands 

 still full of the mortal flowers she had gathered, shed- 

 ding their strange radiance over the joyless land of 

 shadows. These flowers became immortal, and year 

 after year bloomed in the sunless and dewless air, with- 

 out a blossom falling or a leaf fading. But this beautiful 

 fable stands out in marked contrast to the common 

 dreams of the poets. It is a gleam of familiar light 

 seen in the mist. The flowers of Proserpine introduced 

 an unknown sunshine into a shady place. They were 

 not natives of this waste outside region ; they did not 

 grow in the barren soil. They were only sweet remini- 

 scences of the dear old scenes of earth tenderly 

 cherished amid associations altogether different 



The two flowers specially mentioned by the poets as 

 growing in the fields of the immortals were the asphodel 

 and the amaranth. Numerous beautiful allusions occur 

 to them in the classic writings ; but no such description 

 is given as would enable us to identify them with any 

 of the flowers at present growing in the famous scenes 



