Persephone

I'm sure you know a lot of characters from greek mythology, like Jason, Hercules, Aphrodite, and Zeus, but here's one you might not know about. Her name is Persephone, and she's married to the god of the underworld.

Persephone is the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. Now, Demeter is the goddess of the fertility of the land, crops, and the seasons. Persephone, who at this time was called Kore, originally lived in heaven with her mother and father. From what I understand, Zeus and Demeter didn't really get along very well, so Demeter took her daughter and left. Persephone was very beautiful and sweet, and everything a little girl should be. She was basically the embodiment of innocence most of her time was spent picking flowers with her half-sisters and just generally being a little girl. Her whole life was very peaceful until she began to grow up.

While her life was calm and quiet, her soon-to-be husband’s life was not. Hades, as you know was the god of the underworld, and something about Persephone made him fall deeply in love with her, (Hey, opposites attract, right?) He decided to be a gentleman and ask her father (Zeus) for permission to marry her. Zeus thought about it for a moment, and realized that his wife would be very angry with him if he said yes and, Hades would be very angry if he said no. He knew how sensitive Demeter was and how she acted when she didn’t get her way, so he told Hades that he would not say yes so that Demeter would not be angry with him. Hades was not pleased with his answer, so he did what all of the gods did at that time: //force// her to marry him.

He made a flower spring out of the earth… (In some stories it was a narcissus, be we don’t know for sure). Persephone was instantly fixed on picking that flower, she bent over to pick it, the earth opened up like a wound, and as she fell, Hades seized her and brought her to his home. Needless to say, Persephone did not like this new arrangement. How could she? There was no sun and there certainly weren’t any flowers. She waited for rescue but none came. Nobody saw what had happened to her, and even though Demeter was devastated, she had no clue where her beloved daughter had gone.

Demeter was a mess without her daughter. She was so angry that she wandered the earth, as she did this, she made the crops die, the animals infertile, and the people starve. The terrible winter alerted Zeus. He asked her to stop the frost and the cold, but she would not until Persephone was returned to her. So he sent Hermes to investigate. When Hermes learned that Demeter had lost her daughter, he suggested that she ask Helios, the sun god, what had happened, because he sees everything. Demeter took his advice and asked him what had happened. Helios told her the truth that it was Hades who had taken her. Demeter was even more furious and she ran to Zeus and demanded that he give her daughter back to her.

Meanwhile, in the underworld, Persephone was getting used to her new husband and didn’t mind the dark underworld that much after all. She still missed her mother though, and she knew that if she ate any food from the underworld, she would be bound to live there forever, so she did not eat or drink the entire time she was with Hades. Soon enough, Zeus and Demeter came to pick up Persephone. Hades was very angry and Persephone was sad to see him go, but she knew that she would have to return to her mother. Hades offered her a Pomegranate as a sort of good-bye present, and just then, Persephone got an idea. She only ate a few pomegranate seeds, that way, she would only have to stay in the underworld for a few days. Demeter was very upset about this, but eventually agreed that she would only stay in the underworld for a third of the year, during this time, Demeter gets very sad and the crops begin to die, that is why we have winter.

Persephone is actually very important to Greek history for a lot of reasons. People prayed to Persephone and her mother, Demeter a lot because crops were how they ate and how they made money. She also appears in a lot of other stories, for example, she and Aphrodite really didn’t get along because they got into a feud over Hermes’ affection. She also was known to help people out whenever they visited the underworld. Persephone’s personality is remembered as sweet and kind, but also very childish and girly. It seems strange that she would go overlooked so often, but historians still remember her… and now, you will too!

Works Cited

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