Proserpina

Revision as of 10:06, 28 August 2009

Persephone, also known as Proserpina and by the Greeks as Kore, the daughter of Ceres, known to the Greeks as Demeter, goddess of the grain.

One day Kore was gathering flowers in the flelds of Nysa with her companions when she suddenly noticed a narcissus of striking beauty. She ran to pick it, but as she bent down to do so the earth gaped open and Hades appeared. He seized her and dragged her with him down into the depths of the earth. According to another tradition, the abduction of Kore took place on the heights near the town of Enna in Sicily. And in the neighbourhood of Syracuse they showed the place where Hades plunged back into the earth, hollowing out a huge cave in the process, since filled by waters from the spring of Cyane. Colonus in Attica, Hermione in Argolis, Pheneus in Arcadia and even Crete also claimed to be the location of the abduction.

Demeter meanwhile had heard her child's despairing cry for help. 'Then,' says the poet of the Homeric hymn, 'bitter sorrow seized her heart...Over her shoulders she threw a sombre veil and flew like a bird over land and sea, seeking here, seekíng there...' For nine days the goddess searched across the world, bearing flaming torches in her hands. At last on Hecate's advice, she went to consult the divine Helios who revealed to her the name of her daughter's ravísher. 'No other god is guilty,' he said to her, 'but Zeus himself, who awarded thy daughter to his brother Hades so that he might call her his flowering bride.' This revelation overwhelmed Demeter. In rage and despair she withdrew from Olympus and in the guise of an old woman sought refuge among the cities of men.

Still inconsolable at the loss of her daughter, Demeter retired to her temple at Eleusis. There 'she prepared for mankind a cruel and terrible year: the earth refused to give forth any crop. Then would the entire human race have perished of cruel, biting hunger if Zeus had not been concerned.' He hastened to send his messenger Iris to Demeter, but without success. Then all the gods came one by one to beg the goddess to allow the earth to give forth its abundance. She said no, not unless she saw her daughter again. There was no solution except to give in. Zeus commanded Hermes to descend into the kingdom of Hades and obtain Hades' promise to return young Kore - who since her arrival in the underworld had taken the name Persephone - to her mother. Hades complied with the will of Zeus, but before sending his wife up to earth tempted her to eat a few pomegranate seeds. Now this fruit was a symbol of marriage and the effect of eating it was to tender the union of man and wife indissoluble.

When Persephone returned to the world of light her mother Demeter was delighted to be reunited with her daughter again. Her delight was tarnished upon learning that, in contradiction to Zeus' command, Persephone had eaten the six pomegranate seeds, and was condemned to return to Pluto's kingdom. Demeter was about to lose her daughter, and threatened Zeus to make the earth barren forever if Zeus allowed this to happen.

As a compromise Zeus decided that Persephone should live with her husband for one-third of the year and pass the other two-thirds with her mother. The august Rhea herself brought this proposal to Demeter who agreed to it; Demeter set aside her anger and made the soil again be fertile. Before she returned to Olympus, Demeter taught the kings of the earth her divine science and initiated them into her sacred mysteries.

"Plouton [Hades] fell in love with Persephone, and with Zeus' help secretly kidnapped her. Demeter roamed the earth over in search of her, by day and by night with torches. When she learned from the Hermionians that Plouton had kidnapped her, enraged at the gods she left the sky, and in the likeness of a woman made her way to Eleusis ...When Zeus commanded Plouton to send Kore [Persephone] back up, Plouto gave her a pomegranate seed to eat, as assurance that she would not remain long with her mother. With no foreknowledge of the outcome of her act, she consumed it. Askalaphos, the son of Akheron and Gorgyra, bore witness against her, in punishment for which Demeter pinned him down with a heavy rock in Haides' realm. But Persephone was obliged to spend a third of each year with Plouton, and the remainder of the year among the gods." - Apollodorus, The Library 1.29

"He [Hades] with Demeter's girl [Persephone] captive, through grassy plains, drawn in a four-yoked car with loosened reins, rapt over the deep, impelled by love, you flew till Eleusinia's city rose to view: there, in a wondrous cave obscure and deep, the sacred maid secure from search you keep, the cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display an entrance to the kingdoms void of day." - Orphic Hymn 18 to Plouton

"Pluto asked from Iove that he give him in marriage Ceres' daughter and his own. Iove said that Ceres would not permit her daughter to live in gloomy Tartarus, but bade him seize her as she was gathering flowers on Mount Etna, which is in Sicily. While Proserpina [Persephone] was gathering flowers with Venus, Diana, and Minerva, Pluto came in his four-horse chariot, and seized her. Afterwards Ceres obtained from Iove permission for her to stay half of the year with her, and half with Pluto." - Hyginus, Fabulae 146