In Greek mythology, the daughter of Demeter and Zeus, originally called Kore (maiden); known as Proserpine in Latin. She was gathering flowers at Enna in Sicily when Hades abducted her and made her queen of the Underworld. There she ate the seeds of the pomegranate, which meant (in fairy lore) that she was bound to stay; but a compromise was arranged so that she returns for half of every year (an allegory of the return of Spring).
For other uses, see Persephone (disambiguation).In Greek mythology, Persephone (Greek Περσεφόνη, Persephónē) was the queen of the Underworld, the Kore or young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter— and Zeus, in the Olympian version.
Persephone is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature.
The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who use the dialectal variant Proserpina.
In Greek art, Persephone/Kore is invariably portrayed robed.
The figure of Persephone is well-known today.
In a text ascribed to Empedocles describing a correspondence between four gods and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone.
Of the four gods of Empedocles' elements it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo, for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well.
The abduction myth
In the Olympian pantheon, Persephone is given a father: according to Hesiod's Theogony, Persephone was the daughter produced by the union of Zeus and Demeter. "And he [Zeus] came to the bed of bountiful Demeter, who bore white-armed Persephone, stolen by Hades from her mother's side".
Unlike every other offspring of an Olympian pairing, Persephone has no stable position at Olympus. Persephone used to live far away from the other gods, a goddess within Nature before the days of planting seeds and nurturing plants. In the Olympian telling , the gods Hermes, Ares, Apollo and Hephaistos, had all wooed Persephone, but Demeter rejected all their gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of the gods. Thus, Persephone lived a peaceful life before she became the goddess of the underworld, which, according to Olympian mythographers, did not occur until Hades abducted her and brought her into the underworld.
Finally, Zeus, pressured by the cries of the hungry people and by the other gods who also heard their anguish, could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone. But before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into eating three pomegranate seeds, (or six, or four according to some versions of the myth) which forced her to return to the underworld for one month each year for every seed that she ate. In some versions, Ascalaphus informed the other gods that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for four months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm of darkness.
In an alternate version, Hecate rescued Persephone. In the earliest version the dread goddess Persephone was herself Queen of the Underworld (Burkert, Kerenyi).
In some versions, Demeter forbids the earth to produce, in others she is so busy looking for Persephone that she neglects the earth, and in some the depth of her despair causes nothing to grow.
The number of pomegranate seeds varies in different versions of the story, corresponding with the number of months considered as winter months.
This myth can also be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals.
Persephone, as Queen of Hades, only showed mercy once, because the music of Orpheus was so hauntingly sad.
Persephone also figures in the story of Adonis, the Syrian consort of Aphrodite. She gave him to Persephone to watch over, but Persephone was also amazed at his beauty and refused to give him back. The argument between the two goddesses was settled either by Zeus or Calliope, with Adonis spending four months with Aphrodite, four months with Persephone and four months of the years on his own.
When Hades pursued a nymph named Mintho, Persephone turned her into a mint plant.
Persephone was the object of Pirithous' affections. Pirithous chose Persephone. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her husband, Hades.
Persephone and her mother Demeter were often referred to as aspects of the same goddess, and were called "the Demeters" or simply "the goddesses." The story of Persephone's abduction was part of the initiation rites in the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Modern scholarship on Persephone
Persephone before the Greeks?
Many modern scholars have argued that Persephone's cult was a continuation of Neolithic or Minoan goddess-worship.
More daringly, the mythologist Karl Kerenyi has identified Persephone with the nameless "mistress of the labyrinth" at Knossos.
On the other hand, the hypothesis of a universal cult of the Earth Mother has come under increasing criticism in recent years.
Life-death-rebirth
Inspired by James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison and modern mythologers, some scholars have labeled Persephone a life-death-rebirth deity.
Consorts/children
Zeus Zagreus (see Orphic mysteries) (although sometimes thought of as son of Demeter and not Persephone) Hades Adonis HermesThe 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica account of the myth
"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below.
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