Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 6.0–85: Book 6: The gods desire Persephone; Demeter asks Astraios

Look for marvels in the sixth, where in honouring Zagreus, all the settlements on the earth - were drowned by Rainy Zeus.

Nor the Father alone felt desire ; but all that dwelt in Olympos had the same, struck by one bolt, and wooed for a union with Deo’s divine daughter. Then Deo lost the brightness of her rosy face, her swelling heart was lashed by sorrows. She untied the fruitful frontlet from her head, and shook loose the long locks of hair over her neck, trembling for her girl ; the cheeks of the goddess were moistened with self-running tears, in her sorrow that so many wooers had been stung with one fiery shot for a struggle of rival wooing, by maddening Eros, all contending together for their loves. From all the bounteous mother shrank, but specially she feared Hephaistos to be her daughter’s lame bedfellow.

She hastened with quick foot to the house of Astraios the god of prophecy; her hair flowed behind her unbraided and the clusters were shaking in the fitful winds. Eosphoros saw her and brought the news. Old Astraios heard it and arose ; he had covered the surface of a table with dark dust, where he was describing in traced lines a circle with the tooth of his rounding tool, within which he inscribed a square in the dark ashes, and another figure with three equal sides and angles. He left all this, and rose and came towards the door to meet Demeter. As they hastened through the hall, Hesperos led Deo to a chair beside his father’s seat; with equal affection the Winds, the sons of Astraios, welcomed the goddess with refreshing cups of nectar which was ready mixt in the bowl. But Deo refused to drink, being tipsy with Persephoneian trouble : parents of an only child ever tremble for their beloved children,

But Astraios was one of sweet words, who possessed mind-bewitching Persuasion, and with great […] he persuaded Deo to consent while still denying. Then the ancient prepared a great spread, that he might dispel Demeter’s heart-piercing cares by his tables. The four Winds fitted aprons round their waists as their father’s waiters. Euros held out the cups by the mixing-bowl and poured in the nectar, Notos had the water ready in his jug for the meal, Boreas brought the ambrosia and set it on the table, Zephyros fingering the notes of the hoboy made a tune on his reeds of spring-time—a womanish Wind this! Eosphoros plaited garlands of flowers in posies yet proud with the morning dew ; Hesperos held aloft the torch which is wont to give light in the night, and spun about with dancing leg while he tossed high his curving foot—for he is the escort of the Loves, well practised in the skipping tracery of the bridal dance.

After the banquet, as soon as the goddess had had enough of the dance, she threw off the heavy goad of mind-maddening care and inquired of the seer’s art. She laid her left hand on the knees of the kindly ancient, and with her right touched his deep-flowing beard in supplication. She recounted all her daughter’s wooers and craved a comfortable oracle ; for divinations can steal away anxieties by means of hopes to come,

Nor did old Astraios refuse. He learnt the details of the day when her only child was new born, and the exact time and veritable course of the season which gave her birth; then he bent the turning fingers of his hands and measured the moving circle of the ever-recurring number counting from hand to hand in double exchange. He called to a servant, and Asterion lifted a round revolving sphere, the shape of the sky, the image of the universe, and laid it upon the lid of a chest. Here the ancient got to work. He turned it upon its pivot, and directed his gaze round the circle of the Zodiac, scanning in this place and that planets and fixt stars. He rolled the pole about with a push, and the counterfeit sky went rapidly round and round in mobile course with a perpetual movement, carrying the artificial stars about the axle set through the middle. Observing the sphere with a glance all round, the deity found that the Moon at the full was crossing the curved line of her conjunction, and the Sun was half through his course opposite the Moon moving at his central point under the earth ; a pointed cone of darkness creeping from the earth into the air opposite to the Sun hid the whole Moon. Then when he heard the rivals for wedded love, he looked especially for Ares, and espied the wife-robber over the sunset house along with the evening star of the Cyprian. He found the portion called the Portion of the Parents under the Virgin’s starry corn-ear ; and round the Ear ran the light-bearing star of Cronides, father of rain.