Persephone
Ah Persephone: the Queen of the Underworld, Goddess of Spring, and notorious Bad B*tch. From Lore Olympus, to A Touch of Darkness, Persephone seems to be popping up everywhere nowadays! We can only assume this to be true because the popular goddess really only has one major myth that everyone should know to survive a classroom setting. Unfortunately for those of you who are unfamiliar, the mythology featuring our young goddess is somewhat … well, dark. Despite most people focusing on her marriage to Hades (God of the Underworld) as being one filled with love, the story of the two didn’t start off that way. The myth centres all around Hades abducting Persephone from a literal field, dragging her down to the Underworld, and then raping her. Persephone's myth is straight up the original trauma story. Unlike other mythologies that weave stories of funny disguises used to coerce women into sleeping with various deities (we’re looking at you, Zeus), this myth is genuinely heart breaking to read from any angle you wish to take.
In saying this, before we dive into the sources we should probably add a TRIGGER WARNING in right now for those who are sensitive to sexual assault and/or domestic violence.
A little key that will help understand this mythology a little better -
Zeus/Jupiter = King of the gods, god of the sky
Hades/Pluto = God of the Underworld
Demeter/Ceres = Goddess of the harvest
Persephone/Proserpina = Demeter’s daughter, Goddess of spring
Hermes/Mercury = Messenger god
Iris = Also a messenger god, but also goddess of the rainbow
Hecate = Goddess of witchcraft and crossroads
Helios = Titan god of the Sun, meaning he’s a generation older than all the Olympian gods.
Aphrodite/Venus = Goddess of love
Eros/Cupid = God of lust and Aphrodite’s son
We’ll begin with the Greek version of Persephone’s mythology, and then roll into the less popular Roman version:
According to the GreekS
The first time we ever get the famous myth of Persephone is in the well known collection of Homeric Hymns. Classicists everywhere believe at one point there was an individual hymn to each of the olympian gods, however only a handful survive. Luckily for us, one of those happens to be “The Hymn to Demeter”, which details this story of the goddess Demeter losing her daughter Persephone to the God of the Underworld.
Our poem opens with a young Persephone playing in a field with her pals. They’re laughing, giggling, and generally having the best fun, running about and picking flowers. Persephone comes across a narcissus flower and is “struck by wonder” (line 15) of it’s beauty, causing her to reach down and pluck it from the ground. Little does our goddess know that this flower just so happens to be the key to the Underworld. In this moment, the ground “gapes open” (line 17) and out pops Hades, whereupon he picks up Persephone as his own. Popping her on his chariot of death “against her will” (line 19), he rides off with her down to the Underworld.
Before everyone reading this gets incredibly mad at Hades for this seemingly random act, according to the Greek version of this myth we can blame Zeus, Persephone’s father, for this. Prior to this action, Hades had gone to his brother (and king of the gods) to express his desire to have a queen. To be fair to Hades here, the Underworld is really dark and filled with dead people, so his request is understandable because he’s probably lonely. But, the Homer Hymns tell us that Persephone was “given to [Hades] by deep-crashing, far seeing Zeus” (line 3) … even though Persephone isn’t actually aware of this. Hades therefore has full permission from Persephone’s own father to go and take her, but not without one condition. Hades cannot mention this to Persephone’s mother, Demeter. Zeus knows Demeter will freak out massively, so Hades agrees to keep it on the downlow and goes to get his new queen.
Back to Persephone in Hades’ chariot of death, and the girl is screaming her head off. We are literally told “she uttered a piercing scream” in line 30, but no one hears her fast enough. When she realises this mid-flight, the only thing that keeps Persephone a little calm is her hope to “behold her dear mother again” (line 34-35). But alas, Hades doesn’t particularly care about the distress his future wife is in, and takes the screaming Persephone down into the Underworld. Her screams echo off of literally everything including the sea (line 37) meaning Demeter hears something, but can’t quite place it in time. Hecate too “heard from within her cave” (line 25) the scream of Persephone, but was also too late.
What’s particularly strange about this heart breaking moment is Zeus’ role. As Persephone is being dragged off against her will, her own father is distracted by celebrating … himself? The quote reads: “But Zeus sat apart, far away from the gods, in prayer-filled shrine, And received the beautiful offerings made by mortal men” (line 28-29). For those of you that are not familiar with the ancient world and what that means, The Homeric Hymns tell us that while Zeus’ daughter was being traumatised, he was enjoying gifts and celebrations from mortals. What a weird thing to do when you’ve just orchestrated one of the most problematic moments of ALL mythology? The god truly hasn’t a moral bone in his body.
Snapping to the main action, after hearing the echoes of her daughters screams, Demeter flies off in search. She searches for “nine days” (line 46) and on the tenth day, Hecate appears out of no where to assist with “light in her hands” (line 50 — by the way, the “light” means flaming torches). Another odd inclusion within the myth, considering Demeter hasn’t exactly been quiet about her pain with regards to losing her daughter. Why Hecate wouldn’t show up sooner is just utterly bizarre. What, was Hecate busy for the last nine days and only now managed to fit it into her schedule?? Regardless of Hecate’s weird delay, the pair begin their joint search for Persephone by going to Helios, the titan god of the sun. Given that he’s on-shift during the day and Persephone went missing during the day, Demeter and Hecate believe he’s probably the best person to ask if he witnessed anything out of the ordinary. Helios is like you came to the right place, gals! and details to Demeter in lines 76-88 what he saw.
Naturally, when hearing your brother orchestrated the abduction of your daughter without your inclusion or consent, you’re not going to be terribly thrilled. It’s safe to say Demeter goes completely off the rails after hearing this from Helios. Demeter is so distraught at the idea that her baby is stuck in the Underworld that she ensures none of the seeds in the mortal world grow (line 306). And if a god of any sort is upset, you can best bet that everyone else is gong to suffer, too. So Demeter, being the goddess of harvest, takes the harvest away from the mortals so they have no food to eat.
Photo by Daniela Rivera (www.rivera-antara.com)
Upon hearing about this and realising no food means no votive offerings from mortals to gods (line 312), Zeus sends the goddess Iris to go and speak to Demeter. To Zeus’ dismay, Demeter can hold one hell of a grudge and pretty much turns Iris around the second she shows up. Realising that reasoning with Demeter is off the table, Zeus sends Hermes down to Hades to inform him of what’s gone on since Persephone’s disappearance (line 338). Hermes asks that Persephone be allowed to leave in order to see her mother, in the hopes that this will help calm Demeter down enough to allow the mortals to eat again … but also to make offerings to the gods, which is Zeus’ main motivation for this intervention. Hearing this, Hades agrees and actually encourages Persephone to go visit Demeter. As Persephone celebrates, Hades gives her “a pomegranate’s honey-sweet seed” (line 374) to eat before boarding the chariot, which she does. This is the moment all readers truly turn on Hades, as he knows exactly what this will do. Divine law states that if you are to eat anything in the Underworld, you are bound to it for eternity. Hades knows this, acts as though he is encouraging and supportive of Persephone visiting her mother, and yet has her do the one thing that will force her to never leave his side for too long. That is some sneaky dealings the God of the Underworld is making out here.
Unknowing of this small detail, Hermes takes Persephone to Demeter. Unfortunately the text at this moment only survives in fragments. Somewhere in this 10 line fragmental mess, Demeter asks if Persephone ate anything in the underworld, saying “Child now tell me, you surely didn’t anything … Of food? Speak out -” (somewhere around line 392). It’s made immediately clear that this rule of not eating in the Underworld is known to everyone, but apparently not our dear little Persephone. She tells her mother from like 406-434 exactly what happened — including the pomegranate incident — and without missing a beat, Demeter sweeps her daughter away with her to confront Zeus (line 449). She demands Zeus sort out the issue considering he caused it, so Zeus comes up with the famous compromise of Persephone spending equal time with Demeter and Hades.
according to the RomanS
Alright guys, we’re switching names over to latin, so heads up!
The myth of Proserpina and Pluto is slightly different according to the lovely Romans. In this version, it’s actually Venus who orchestrates the abduction of Proserpina. We see in Ovid’s retelling that Venus is sitting around one day and starts to over think the relevance of her and her son’s godly roles of love and lust. Realising that there are already two virgin gods, she starts to think that if Proserpina is influenced by this, the pair are at risk of going out of business. Ovid reads:
“My power grows less, and less the power of Love. / Do you not see how Pallas and Diana, / Queens of the chase, have both deserted me? / And Ceres’ daughter, if we suffer it, / Will stay a virgin too” (line 372-377, book 5)
Heaven forbid Proserpina were to not ever have sex, but alas, this is the world of mythology. Venus tells her son Cupid that they therefore have no choice but to step in. She considers her options of who to set Proserpina up with and settles on Pluto, god of the Underworld, as he’s currently uninvolved with anyone romantically. Venus instructs Cupid to shoot Pluto with a love arrow, Pluto gets hit, see's Proserpina and falls madly in love. It’s pretty much that quick in lines 380-395.
Photo by Daniela Rivera (http://www.rivera-antara.com)
After this initial change in the myth, the middle of the story revolving around Ceres’ pain is basically the same. The only major change to note is Hecate’s lack of intrusion. Without Hecate, this also means that Helios plays no role in telling Ceres what happened considering Hecate is not there to advise her to seek Helios’ advice. Instead, a nymph takes over this advisor role. When Ceres starts to looking for Proserpina, she comes across this river nymph who tells her what happened, after accidentally witnessing the abduction.
With this new found knowledge, Ceres goes to Jupiter demanding that he orders for Proserpina to be brought back from the Underworld. However according to Jupiter, because Pluto hasn’t committed a crime due to the fact he’s actually in love with Proserpina, Jupiter doesn’t really see the problem (*internal screaming). In line 534, Ceres and Jupiter find out that “the fates … were against” Proserpina returning to her mother, as she “plucked a crimson fruit”. In Ovid’s retelling, it’s thus Proserpina who causes her own imprisonment because of her ignorance to the divine law of the Underworld. By order of the Fates who rule outside of the gods wills, Proserpina can not return to be with Ceres. Jupiter manages to get a little wiggle room in line 565 when suggesting to the Fates that Proserpina only spends half the year with her mother and the other half with her new husband.
What the myth meant to the ancients
The myth of Persephone (or Proserpina) was extremely important to the ancient world as this was used to explain the seasons. When Persephone was with her mother Demeter, the world was happy and warm; the fields were green, crops grew and the mortal world flourished. However, in the months that Demeter was without her daughter, she swept the world in her pain. When Demeter is happy we experience spring and summer, but when she’s upset we get autumn and winter.
When looking at this myth through a modern lens, it’s hard not to question how the ancients would have felt if they discovered the Southern Hemisphere. The whole flipping of seasons thing would have confused the absolute s*** out of them in regards to this mythology.
For more information on Persephone, you can check out the following sources:
Ovid’s Metamorphoses (we have this version)
The Homeric Hymns
All photos from this article are by Peruvian photographer Daniela Rivera.