Persephone

Persephone, in Greek religion, daughter of Zeus, the chief god, and Demeter, the goddess of agriculture. Persephone was the wife of Hades, king of the underworld, and was associated with spring, vegetation, and marriage. The myth of her abduction by Hades was a symbolic explanation of seasonal change. Persephone was also called Kore, and her Roman equivalent was Proserpine or Proserpina.

Persephone and Hades

In the Homeric “Hymn to Demeter,” the story is told of how Persephone was gathering flowers in the Vale of Nysa when she was seized by Hades and removed to the underworld. In her absence Demeter became so miserable and unconcerned with the harvest or the fruitfulness of the earth that widespread famine ensued. With the help of Hecate and either Hyperion or Helios, Hades was identified as Persephone’s captor and was commanded by Zeus to release Persephone to her mother.

However, because Persephone had eaten a single (or more, depending on the account) pomegranate seed in the underworld, she could not be completely freed. She had to remain one-third of the year with Hades and spent the other two-thirds with her mother. The story that Persephone spent four months of each year in the underworld was no doubt meant to account for the barren appearance of Greek fields in full summer—after harvest, before their revival in the autumn rains, when they are plowed and sown.

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From Athena to Zeus: Basics of Greek Mythology

Queen of the underworld

As the wife of Hades, Persephone played an influential role in myths surrounding the underworld. She allowed the shade of the seer Tiresias to retain his prophetic mind, because of which he was consulted by Odysseus during his wanderings in Homer’s Odyssey. When Orpheus descended to the underworld to retrieve his bride Eurydice, Persephone persuaded Hades to grant the request. However, Eurydice did not leave the underworld because Orpheus failed to meet the condition set for her recovery—that he would not look back during the journey to the land of the living. Persephone also persuaded Hades to allow Heracles to complete the final of his 12 labors—fetching up the triple-headed dog Cerberus from the underworld. While in the underworld, Heracles freed the hero Theseus, who had been imprisoned with his friend Pirithous by Hades for attempting to abduct Persephone.

Other myths

Despite her marriage to Hades, Persephone was regarded as having at least two other romantic liaisons. She competed with Aphrodite for the love of the mortal Adonis. Traditionally, he was the product of an incestuous encounter between Smyrna (Myrrha) and her father, the Syrian king Theias. Charmed by his beauty, Aphrodite put the newborn infant Adonis in a box and handed him over to the care of Persephone, who afterward refused to give him up. Zeus decided that Adonis should spend a third of the year with Persephone and a third with Aphrodite, the remaining third being at his own disposal. In another version of the story, Aphrodite engineered the death of Artemis’s favorite, Hippolytus, after which Artemis caused the death of Adonis. Aphrodite then pleaded for his life with Zeus, who allowed Adonis to spend half of each year with her and half in the underworld.

In Orphic myth Persephone was regarded as one of the many lovers of Zeus, her father, who visited her in the form of a snake. Zagreus, the child born of their union, was destroyed and consumed by the Titans, at the instigation of Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera. The infant Dionysus, also fathered by Zeus, was subsequently formed from Zagreus’s heart, which Athena had managed to save.