far from Demeter of the golden blade, giver of rich harvests, as she played with the deep-bosomed daughters of Ocean and gathered flowers over a soft meadow: roses and crocus and lovely violets, irises and hyacinth,

Chrysaoros, "of the golden blade," is an epithet usually given to Apollo. For Demeter the golden blade is most likely the sickle and the ripe ears of grain, the harvest she governs. The list of flowers is a list of spring, and most of them carry their own stories. The hyacinth grew from the blood of a boy Apollo loved and killed by accident. The meadow is beautiful and dangerous at once, a place where young women in Greek myth are caught.