answered Ceres , indignantly . `` What is there to gratify her heart ? What are all the splendors you speak of without affection ? I must have her back again . Will you go with me you go with me , Phoebus , to demand my daughter of this wicked Pluto ? '' `` Pray excuse me , '' replied Phoebus , with an elegant obeisance . `` I certainly wish you success , and regret that my own affairs are so immediately pressing that I can not have the pleasure of attending you . Besides , I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto . To tell you the truth , his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway ; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me , and those , you know , are forbidden things in Pluto 's kingdom . '' `` Ah , Phoebus , '' said Ceres , with bitter meaning in her words , `` you have a harp instead of a heart . Farewell . '' `` Will not you stay a moment , '' asked Phoebus , `` and hear me turn the pretty and touching story of Proserpina into extemporary verses ? '' But Ceres shook her head , and hastened away , along with Hecate . Phoebus -LRB- who , as I have told you , was an exquisite poet -RRB- forthwith began to make an ode about the poor mother 's grief ; and , if we were to judge of his sensibility by this beautiful production , he must have been endowed with a very tender heart . But when a poet gets into the habit of using his heartstrings to make chords for his lyre , he may thrum upon them as much as he will , without any great pain to himself . Accordingly , though Phoebus sang a very sad song , he was as merry all the while as were the sunbeams amid which he dwelt . Poor Mother Ceres had now found out what had become of her daughter , but was not a whit happier than before . Her case , on the contrary , looked more desperate than ever . As long as Proserpina was above ground , there might have been hopes of regaining her . But now that the poor child was shut up within the iron gates of the king of the mines , at the threshold of which lay the three-headed Cerberus , there seemed no possibility of her ever making her escape .
The dismal Hecate , who loved to take the darkest view of things , told Ceres that she had better come XXXXX her to the cavern , and spend the rest of her life in being miserable .
To above as at if into of than upon with