BLOSSOMING

Then Demeter, with the beautiful garlands in her hair, addressed her:

—Woman, I wish you kharis back, and then some. May the gods give you good things. With positive intentions, I will take your little boy as you tell me to. I will nourish him, and I do not expect that, through the inadvertence of her nursemaid, he would perish from a pestilence or from the Undercutter. I know an antidote that is far more powerful than the Woodcutter; I know a genuine remedy for the painful pestilence. Having so spoken, she took the child to her fragrant bosom, in her immortal hands. And the mother rejoiced in her mind.

(Hymn to Demeter, 225-234)