Basic Information / General Synopsis:
Persephone, or Proserpina,
Or Persephoneia, also called Kora by the Greeks, and by the Romans Libera,
was a daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and the wife of Aides, the marriage
being childless. Struck with the charms of her virgin beauty, Hades had
obtained the sanction of this brother Zeus to carry her off by force; and
for this purpose, as the myth relates, he suddenly rose up from a dark
hole in the earth near to where she was wandering in a flowery meadow not
far from Ætna in Sicily, plucking and gathering the narcissus, seized by
lovely flower-gatherer, and made off with her to the under-world in a
chariot drawn by four swift horses, Hermes leading the way. Persephone
resisted, begged and implored the gods and men to help her; but Zeus
approving the transaction let it pass. In vain Demeter searched for her
daughter, traversing every land, or, as other myths say, pursuing the
escaped Hades with her yoke of winged serpents, till she learned what had
taken place from the all-seeing and all-hearing god of the sun. Then she
entreated with tears to the gods to giver her daughter back, and this they
promised to do provided she had not as yet tasted of anything in the
under-world. But by the time that Hermes, who had been sent by Zeus to
ascertain this, reached the under-world, she had eaten the half of a
pomegranate which Hades had given her as an expression of love. For this
reason the return of Persephone to the upper world for the good became
impossible. She must remain the wife of Hades. An arrangement was however
come to, by which she was to be allowed to stay with her mother half of
the year on earth and among the gods of Olympos, while the other half of
the year was to be spent with her husband below.
In this myth of Persephone-Kora, daughter of Zeus, the god of the heavens,
which by their warmth and rain produce fertility, and of Demeter, the
maternal goddess of the fertile earth, we see that she was conceived as a
divine personification of the process of vegetation – in summer appearing
beside her mother in the light of the upper world, but in the autumn
disappearing, and in the winter passing her time, like the seed, under the
earth with the god of the lower world. The decay observed throughout
Nature in autumn, the suspension of vegetation in winter, impressed the
ancients, as it impresses us and strikes modern poets, as a moral of the
transitoriness of all earthly life; and hence the carrying off of
Persephone appeared to be simply a symbol of death. But the myth at the
same time suggests hope, and proclaims the belief that out of death
springs a new life, but apparently not a productive life, and that men
carried off by the god of the under-world will not for ever remain in the
unsubstantial region of the shades. This at least appears to have been the
sense in which the myth of Persephone and her mother was presented to
those initiated into the Eleusian Mysteries, which, as we have remarked
before, held out assuring hopes of the imperishableness of human
existence, and of an eternal real life to follow after death.
As queen of the shades Persephone had control over the various dreaded
beings whose occupation, like that of the Sirens, was to beguile men to
their death, or like that of Erinys to avenge murder and all base crimes.
She shared the honours paid to her husband in Greece, lower Italy, and
especially in the island of Sicily. Temples of great beauty were erected
for her in the Greek Locri, and at Kyzikos on the Propontis. The principal
festivals held in her honour in Greece occurred in the autumn or in
spring, the visitors at the former appearing dressed in mourning to
commemorate her being carried off by Pluto, while at the spring festival
all wore holiday garments to commemorate her return.
There remains, however, the important phase of her character in which she
returns to the upper world and is associated with her mother Demeter. But
this will be more convenient to consider in the next chapter. The
attributes of Persephone were ears of corn and poppies. Her attribute as
the wife of Hades was a pomegranate; her sacrifice consisted of cows and
pigs. In works of art she has a more youthful appearance, but otherwise
closely resembles her mother Demeter. The Roman Proserpina, though the
name is clearly the same as Persephone, appears to have had no hold on the
religious belief of the Roman nation, their goddess of the shades being
Libitina, or Lubentina. (e)
PERSEPHONE: According to
ancient Greek myth, Persephone is the wife of HADES, ruler of the
underworld. She is referred to as the queen of the dead. The two
are often pictured together in their subterranean kingdom on ancient vases,
tombs, and other MEMORIALS.
Persephone is the daughter of
the powerful deity Demeter, goddess of the harvest. Hades becomes
infatuated with the young maiden and kidnaps Persephone and drags her to the
underworld to be his bride. Enraged at this act, Demeter destroys the
crops and renders the earth infertile. She vows to continue this
condition until her child is returned to her, but Hades is determined to
keep the lovely Persephone as his queen. A devastating famine results
throughout the land.
Eventually, Zeus and the
other gods intervene to settle the dispute. Because Persephone has
eaten "the food of the dead," she is unable to return to the land of the
living. When Demeter is informed of this, she and Hades strike a
compromise: Persephone will spend half the year in the underworld the
other half with her mother. This, according to Greek myth, is the
reason for the winter season. It is the time when Persephone is with
Hades, and Demeter is in mourning.
Persephone plays an important
role in several underworld legends. When the musician ORPHEUS travels
to Hades in search of his recently deceased wife, it is Persephone who
convinces the king to restore the dead EURYDICE. Through Persephone's
intervention, Hades agrees to let Eurydice return to the land of the living
on one condition: Orpheus must promise not to look back until they
have reached the surface of the earth. At first Orpheus complies, but
soon he becomes convinced that Hades has tricked him. Just before they
emerge from the underworld, Orpheus turns around to make certain that his
wife is following him. As he does so, the beautiful Eurydice
disappears into the murky mist, lost to him forever.
In another famous story, the
heroes THESEUS and Pirithoüs venture to the underworld to steal Persephone
away from Hades and return her to her mother. They fail miserably and
are damned to TARTARUS, the lowest realm of the dead. The two are
mercilessly punished by the FURIES and even heckled by King Hades himself
for their foolishness in trying to best the lord of hell. Theseus is
later retrieved from this torment by the legendary hero HERCULES; however,
Pirithoüs remains among the damned.
The beautiful Persephone also
appears in such works as the opera ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD and the
epic poem ODYSSEY. (g)
Persephone in Greek Mythology
Sources for Greek mythology usually claim
that Persephone was the daughter of two Olympian gods, Zeus and Demeter.
This is an interesting ancestry for a goddess who was destined to be the
Queen of the Underworld, but in ancient myth, almost anything is possible.
And although her parents were powerful and well known deities, Persephone
remains somewhat elusive and shadowy, like the realm over which she
co-rules. This may be due to the fact that she is overshadowed by her
mother. In the Hymn to Demeter, we find the most important myth about
Persephone, and yet the majority of the poem is dedicated to Demeter (as the
title suggests).
Marriage of Persephone
Most of the Hymn to Demeter is concerned
with the details of Demeter's search for her lost daughter, because the poem
is in many respects more about Demeter and her reactions to the loss of
Persephone than about the abduction of Persephone itself. Be this as it may,
the young goddess who is enamored of flowers and cavorting with her friends
is transformed into the wife of the stern and imperious Hades in the Hymn.
This is accomplished through one significant event: once in the Underworld,
Hades offers Persephone the seeds of the pomegranate, which she accepts. The
act of ingesting pomegranate seeds symbolizes the consummation of their
relationship, which is a beautiful poetic touch. Hereafter, Persephone, who
was previously known as Kore ("the maiden") is regarded as the spouse of
Hades, and she inhabits the Underworld with him for part of the year.
The goddess Persephone was known as
Proserpina in Roman mythology.
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