Proserpina

In this version of the tale, Orfeo and Euridice become pawns in the hands of capricious godly and allegorical characters: Venus and Amore, Pluto and Proserpina and personifications of Jealousy and Suspicion.

Her faithful cover of Proserpina, one of the last songs McGarrigle wrote, is even more acute, an anguished wail of longing set to plangent piano and violin.

Venus repeatedly tested her fidelity and endurance, and finally resolved, as a crucial experiment, to send her to Hades to fetch a box of beauty ointment, for which Proserpina alone had the recipe.

Thoreau was ever ready in thought of Proserpina gathering flowers.

Thus Trimalchio says, 'I threw thy Cerberus a sleepy morsel, And paid thy Charon for my waftage over, And I have a golden sprig for my Proserpina.