`` Foolish woman , '' answered Ceres , `` did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me ? You little know the mischief you have done him . Had you left him to my care , he would have grown up like a child of celestial birth , endowed with superhuman strength and intelligence , and would have lived forever . Do you imagine that earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to it in the fiercest heat of the fire ? But you have ruined your own son . For though he will be a strong man and a hero in his day , yet , on account of your folly , he will grow old , and finally die , like the sons of other women . The weak tenderness of his mother has cost the poor boy an immortality . Farewell . '' Saying these words , she kissed the little Prince Demophoon , and sighed to think what he had lost , and took her departure without heeding Queen Metanira , who entreated her to remain , and cover up the child among the hot embers as often as she pleased . Poor baby ! He never slept so warmly again . While she dwelt in the king 's palace , Mother Ceres had been so continually occupied with taking care of the young prince , that her heart was a little lightened of its grief for Proserpina . But now , having nothing else to busy herself about , she became just as wretched as before . At length , in her despair , she came to the dreadful resolution that not a stalk of grain , nor a blade of grass , not a potato , nor a turnip , nor any other vegetable that was good for man or beast to eat , should be suffered to grow until her daughter were restored . She even forbade the flowers to bloom , lest somebody 's heart should be cheered by their beauty . Now , as not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground , without the especial permission of Ceres , you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth . The husbandmen plowed and planted as usual ; but there lay the rich black furrows , all as barren as a desert of sand . The pastures looked as brown in the sweet month of June as ever they did in chill November . The rich man 's broad acres and the cottager 's small garden patch were equally blighted . Every little girl 's flower bed showed nothing but dry stalks .
The old people shook their white heads , and said that the earth had grown aged like themselves , and was no longer capable XXXXX wearing the warm smile of summer on its face .
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