But Demeter refused to budge until her daughter stood by her side. Zeus had no choice: He relented, promising to bring Persephone back to her mother. Hermes, summoned by Zeus, raced down to Hades to fetch Persephone. Hades shrugged compliantly and agreed to let her go. Persephone had not eaten a single thing? But before she left, Hades urged Persephone to appease her terrible hunger by eating a single pomegranate seed. Sadly, this apparent act of kindness was a trick: Anyone who tastes the food of Hades must remain in the Underworld.
In another version of this story, Persephone innocently plucked some fruit from the trees in the gardens of Hades herself. To fight off her terrible hunger, she secretly ate seven pomegranate seeds. But a gardener of Hades had seen her and ratted her out to Hades. Persephone punished him for his indiscretion by turning him into a screech owl or Demeter punished him by burying him under an enormous rock.
The deed having been done, Rhea? Rhea suggested that Persephone spend six months or, according to some, three or four months as Queen of the Underworld and the rest of the year with Demeter. After agreeing to the deal, Demeter restored Earth's fertility and returned to Olympus with Persephone. But when the time came for Persephone to return to the Underworld, the earth became colder and less fertile until her reemergence months later.
Since the abduction of Persephone, spring and summer have given way to autumn and winter, and the earth's fertility has followed the progression of seasons.
In the fall, seeds? But in the spring, Persephone and the earth's crops came out into the sun once more. Although she spent only half of her life in the Underworld, little is known of Persephone's life above ground after her abduction. Below ground, however, she was dreaded forever afterward as the goddess of the Underworld.
So feared was she that mortals often invoked her name in curses. Despite her forbidding image, Queen Persephone did sometimes show a capacity for mercy. When Alcestis offered her own life in place of her dying husband's, Persephone sent her back from the Underworld and spared them both. Persephone also exhibited strong maternal feelings when Aphrodite entrusted her with safeguarding the infant Adonis see The A Team: Olympians All. Indeed, she became so enamored of the baby that she refused to give him back.
Zeus ultimately ruled that Adonis would spend one third of his life with Persephone, one third with Aphrodite, and one third with whomever he wished. The cries of the people who were suffering reached Olympus and the divine ears of Zeus. The mighty god finally realized that if he wouldn't do something about his wife's wrath, all humanity would disappear.
Thus he tried to find another solution to both calm Demeter and please Hades. He promised Demeter to restore Persephone to her if it can be proved that the maiden stays with Hades against her will.
Otherwise, Persephone belongs to her husband. The crafty Hades learned this agreement and tricked his reluctant bride, who was crying all day and night from despair, to eat a few seeds of the pomegranate fruit. This was the food of the Underworld and every time someone ate even a few seeds of this, then, after a while, he would miss life in the Underworld.
When the gathering in front of Zeus took place and Persephone was asked where she would like to live, she answered she wanted to live with her husband. When Demeter heard that, she got infuriated and accused Hades that somehow he had tricked her daughter. A great fight followed and Demeter threatened that she would never again make the earth fertile and everyone on Earth would die.
To put an ed on this quarrel, Zeus decided that Persephone would spend half months with her husband in Hades and half months with her mother on Olympus. This alternative pleased none of the two opponents, nevertheless that had no other option but accept it. Thus the lovely maiden Persephone became the rightful wife of Hades and Queen of the Underworld.
During the six months that Persephone spent in the Underworld, her mother was sad and not in the mood to deal with harvest. Thus she would leave the Earth to decline. According to the ancient Greeks, these were the months of Autumn and Winter, when the land is not fertile and does not give crops. Whenever Persephone went to Olympus to live with her mother, Demeter would shine from happiness and the land would become fertile again and fruitful.
These were the months of Spring and Summer. Therefore, this myth was created to explain the change of the seasons, the eternal cycle of the Nature's death and rebirth. Previous myth: The Amazons Next myth: Prometheus, the friend of man. Contact us Contact us. Sign In. Discover the myth of Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld The abduction from Hades According to Greek Mythology, Persephone, the queen of the underworld, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of harvest and fertility.
Desperately looking for Persephone The other girls had not seen anything because everything happened very quickly. Trying to find a solution Demeter, however, could not let it gone. He quickly grabbed Persephone before either Athena or Artemis could move to protect her.
Persephone cried out for help, but her father Zeus, being involved in the abduction, did nothing to protect her. The young goddess Hecate heard the screaming and appeared from her cave to witness Hades riding off with the girl. Helios, the Titan of the sun who had not yet retired his post to the younger Apollo, had also witnessed the abduction. Persephone did not stop her cries for help as long as the sunlight was upon her face, and just before her capturer descended with her to the Underworld, her mother heard her cries.
Demeter quickly returned to the fields where she left her daughter, but Persephone was gone. The goddess cried out in fury that the second part of the prophecy had now come true.
She cried out to Zeus to help her find her daughter, but Zeus ignored her cries since he was involved in the abduction. For nine days, Demeter would search for her daughter, but during that time, much would happen to the grieving mother. During this time period, King Tantalus, the demigod son of Zeus who ruled Anatolia, threw a dinner party for the Olympians where he served his infant son Pelops as the main course.
Perhaps Demeter should have begged out of the dinner, for in her state of depression, she was the only one who ate, eating the left shoulder of the boy. Hephaestus replaced the missing body part when Zeus commanded that the boy be resurrected. It is clear, however, that in her right mind, Demeter would never have eaten the boy. After the events of the dinner party, the goddess returned to the search for her daughter. This time she was not searching alone. Having caught wind of the situation during the dinner party, Poseidon started following his sister Demeter.
She may have given in to her brother Zeus's passions, but she did not have time to waste on Poseidon. She found a field of mares grazing in Arcadia and assumed their form to hide from her brother. Poseidon being the god of horses, however, recognized the disguise and took the form of a stallion. It was not long before he got what he was after.
As a result of this nonconsensual union, the goddess of the harvest became pregnant with twins. When the time came for her to deliver them, she gave birth to a daughter whose name was unknown for a long time except to the followers of Demeter's cult.
We have since learned her name was Despoina. Her son assumed the form his parents had taken when he was conceived, and was born as the immortal horse Arion. During her searching, Demeter came upon a cottage. She realized that she had had nothing to drink during her journey, so she knocked on the door of the cottage and asked for water.
The old woman who came to the door brought her beer instead. Demeter began to drink. While she was drinking, a young boy, Ascalabus, came to the door and started laughing at the woman who was gulping down the drink.
He called her greedy for the way she was consuming the entire thing so quickly. Demeter became enraged and threw the remaining drink in the boy's face, barley and all. The boy instantly stopped laughing when his face started blotching and his arms started to transform.
The goddess turned him into a lizard. The old woman who had given Demeter the drink reached for the boy with tears in her eyes, but he ran into a nearby hole. Finally after nine days of pain and searching, young Hecate, the daughter of Asteria and Perseus, went to Demeter to tell her all that she had seen.
She told Demeter that she had heard Persephone's screams, but admitted that she did not see who took the young girl. She thought there might be someone else who did. Hecate then lead Demeter to Helios, the Titan of the sun. Helios, upon hearing the sad tale of Demeter, told her that since he is the sun, he sees all, including what had happened to Persephone. What he told her, however, not only shocked the goddess but filled her with more anger than she had ever felt.
Hades had taken her daughter, and Zeus had helped him. Demeter left her meeting with Helios and Hecate and went straight to Zeus where she scolded him.
She demanded that he bring their daughter back but Zeus refused. He had given Hades permission and to marry Persephone, and he was not going back on it. Demeter now had no choice. Zeus was not going to help her get her daughter back, and she could not go to the Underworld and retrieve her.
All she had left was her sorrow. She fled to Eleusis and hid herself in a cave. Then, she travelled from town to town disguising herself as an old woman. One afternoon, she was sitting near a well in Eleusis when four girls came to draw water for their mother. Not recognizing the goddess, they asked of her well-being. The girls were the daughters of a man named Keleos, and his daughters were Kallidike, Kleisidike, Demo, and Kallithoe.
Demeter decided to tell them who she was and why she was there, but she didn't tell them the truth. She told the girls that she had been taken by pirates who had intended to sell her into slavery, but she managed to escape. Now, she was here in Eleusis looking for someone that would take her into their home where she could be a house cleaner or a nurse.
Kallidike told her that there were many honorable families in town, and any of them would take the old woman in. If she would stay where she was, they would go ask their father to accept the old woman into their home, as their mother had recently given birth to a son and could use the help of a nursemaid. Demeter agreed to wait, and soon the girls returned to bring the old woman to their mother, Metaneira.
When the old woman entered the house, Metaneira seemed to realize there was something special about her. She quickly rose and offered the stranger her seat, but Demeter refused to take it. When another seat was brought forth, the old woman took a seat and sat in silence. She was offered wine, but refused to drink it and asked only for water mixed with meal and mint. Metaneira then told the old woman that she was too noble to work for her. Demeter insisted that Meteneira was the noble one, and that she would be honored to help her raise her son.
Demeter then took the infant into her arms, and he grew content to stay there. Demeter knew she could do much more than just help raise the boy, whose name was Demophoon. She had the power to make him immortal, and that is what she set out to do. She cared for him in a normal fashion when people were around, but in secret, she covered the boy in ambrosia.
At night, she placed Demophoon in the fire to burn away his earthly restraints. This was the same process that would later be used by Thetis to try to save her son Achilles from the possibility of death.
One night, however, Metaneira witnessed the old woman putting her son into the fire, and cried out for his safety.
Demeter was upset at being caught. She would not be allowed to continue her duties or provide immortality to the boy she had grown so close to. Out of anger, Demeter threw the boy to the ground. She then scolded the family, telling them they had no idea what they have or do not have in life.
She could have given their son immortality, but now he is doomed to die. She continued by telling them that if they built a temple to her and made sacrifice, she would teach them her secrets and favor them with her blessings.
At this, Demeter removed her disguise and revealed that she was in fact the goddess of the harvest. As the girls rushed to their brother who was lying on the floor, they found that no one could comfort him.
He only wanted to be held by Demeter. The girls soon told their father Keleos all that the goddess had said. He quickly gathered the men of the town including Triptolemos, a young boy of the town who, in sickness, was nursed by the breast of the goddess and instantly became a healthy grown man.
They built a temple and altar to Demeter. Every man gave sacrifice to the goddess, and she made the sight the home of her permanent cult. Triptolemus was then taught by the goddess, and became the first priest of her temple at Eleusis. For a year, Demeter kept herself hidden away in Eleusis.
All the while, no plants were growing around the world. The mortals were not able to eat or make sacrifice to the other gods. Everyone, mortal and god alike, were praying to Zeus to relieve their suffering, to make Demeter favor the harvest once again. Zeus finally knew he had to do something, so he sent Iris, goddess of the rainbow and a messenger, to find Demeter and arrange a meeting with him on Mt. Iris followed Zeus's orders and sped down to Eleusis.
She gave Demeter the message and begged her to obey the god of the gods, but Demeter refused. Zeus then told the gods to go to his sister in Eleusis themselves to talk her into allowing the seeds to grow once again.
Each of them went to Demeter and begged her to return to work. The people were starving without her. One by one she refused, telling them she would not return to Olympus until she had her daughter Persephone. The gods then returned to Zeus and pleaded with him to return Persephone to her mother.
The king of the gods knew he had no choice, he sent Hermes to the underworld to bring his daughter home. King and Queen of the Underworld Hades and Persephone sitting on their thrones. Meanwhile, in the underworld, Hades had offered Persephone all the riches he had to offer if she would only stay and love him.
In time, the girl did come to love her husband, though she did miss her mother and the flowers of the world above. During her time with Hades, she bore him a daughter, Melinoe, goddess of ghosts and nightmares although, according to Greek mythology, Melinoe is in fact Zeus's daughter, as he was disguised as Hades during the time of conception.
The baby girl was born with one side of her body colored black in honor of her father, and one side of her body colored white in honor of her mother. Their time together was not complete bliss, however. Before falling in love with Persephone, Hades had kept another lover in the underworld.
Her name was Mint, and when Hades cast her from his bed back into the world above, she was unhappy to have lost her place. She told anyone who would listen that Hades would be back for her. He would grow tired of the silly girl and send her back to her mother because she, Mint, was more beautiful and nobler than Persephone. When word of the woman's comments reached Demeter, the goddess found her and stomped her to death, creating the plant that bears her name today.
Apparently this had happened before the goddess Demeter went to Eleusis, as she asked for mint in her drink. What happened next, however, differs depending on who is telling the tale. Some say that Hades tricked Persephone when he learned that Hermes was being sent to retrieve the girl.
Other say that Persephone, looking for a way to stay with her husband, took matters into her own hands. Still others say it was a simple accident.
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