[76][77] Alternatively, Persephone tore Minthe to pieces for sleeping with Hades, and it was he who turned his former lover into the sweet-smelling plant. When Persephone's time is over and she would be reunited with her mother, Demeter's joyousness would cause the vegetation of the earth to bloom and blossom which signifies the Spring and Summer seasons. A view of the excavation of Eleusis, Greece. Her name can be translated to variations of "she who destroys the light" (Lindermans). One of the most beautiful women in Greek mythology, hers is a story filled with sadness and rage and acts both wonderful and dreadful. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades. According to mythology, Hades, god of the Underworld, fell in love with beautiful Persephone when he saw her picking flowers one day in a meadow. Virgil: Proserpina (the Roman equivalent of Persephone) appears a handful of times in the Georgics (29 BCE) and the Aeneid (19 BCE). [61] Afterwards, Rhea became Demeter. Revisiting the Nature of Persephone in the Gold Leaves of Magna Graecia", "Locri Epizephyrii, The Archaeological Site Persephoneion, the Sanctuary of Persephone", Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. These include Persephassa () and Persephatta (). [87] On a neck amphora from Athens Dionysus is depicted riding on a chariot with his mother, next to a myrtle-holding Persephone who stands with her own mother Demeter; many vases from Athens depict Dionysus in the company of Persephone and Demeter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961. But many later sources put the site of Persephones abduction somewhere on the island of Sicily, which was heavily connected with the worship of Persephone and her mother, Demeter. Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.31.1; scholia on Pindars Olympian Ode 7.153. Helios, the Sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered where her daughter had been taken. Please support World History Encyclopedia. Demeter was the Ancient Greek goddess of the harvest. Her attribute was poppy and pomegranate fruit, so she was also associated with spring, flowers, life, and vegetation before becoming queen of the underworld. Zeus was filled with desire for his mother, Rhea, intending to marry her. In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone ( / prsfni / pr-SEF--nee; Greek: , romanized : Persephn ), also called Kore or Cora ( / kri / KOR-ee; Greek: , romanized : Kr, lit. Elsewhere, such as Cyzicus,[33] Erythrae,[34] Sparta,[35] Megalopolis in Arcadia,[36] and the Athenian deme of Corydallus,[37] Persephone was worshipped with the cult title Soteira, meaning Savior.. In most versions, she forbids the earth to produce, or she neglects the earth and, in the depth of her despair, she causes nothing to grow. Ammonius Grammaticus, On the Differences of Synonymous Expressions 279. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Accessed October 29, 2021. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DP%3Aentry+group%3D15%3Aentry%3Dpersephone-bio-1. In the Homeric "Hymn to Demeter," the story is told of Persephone's . In Orphic myth, Zeus came to Persephone in her bedchamber in the underworld and impregnated her with the child who would become his successor. On Attic red-figure pottery throughout the Classical period, Persephone is often shown seated on her throne in Hades. Her Roman counterpart is Proserpina. Lincoln argues that the myth is a description of the loss of Persephone's virginity, where her epithet koure signifies "a girl of initiatory age", and where Hades is the male oppressor forcing himself onto a young girl for the first time. Terrified, Rhea refused to nurse the child and fled. Terracotta loutrophoros (ceremonial water jug) attributed to the Darius Painter (ca. Hesiod: There is a brief reference to Persephones genealogy and the myth of her abduction in the seventh-century BCE epic the Theogony. Kernyi, Kroly. Homer memorializes the dance floor which Daedalus built for Ariadne in the remote past. According to Burkert, the figure looks like a vegetable because she has snake lines on other side of her. Persephone was gathering flowers with the Oceanids along with Artemis and Pallas, daughter of Triton, as the Homeric Hymn says, in a field when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth. Locrian pinakes represent one of the most significant categories of objects from Magna Graecia, both as documents of religious practice and as works of art. Demeter would then raise Persephone alone. All Rights Reserved. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. This Macaria is asserted to be the daughter of Hades, but no mother is mentioned. In the end, a compromise was reached: Persephone would spend part of the year in the Underworld as Hades wife and the other part on Olympus with her mother, Demeter. Though Hecate did not know where Persephone had been taken, she told Demeter to seek information from Helios, the charioteer of the sun, who was the only witness to the crime. Persephone also appears many times in popular culture. Later accounts place the abduction in Attica, near Athens, or near Eleusis. [50][51] When Persephone would return to the underworld, Demeter's despair at losing her daughter would cause the vegetation and flora of the world to wither, signifying the Autumn and Winter seasons. In favour of this argument is that in Greece's climate seeds are sown in the autumn and quickly germinate to grow throughout the winter time. "Persephone." These rituals, which were held in the month Pyanepsion, commemorated marriage and fertility, as well as the abduction and return of Persephone. Plato: There is a brief summary of Persephones involvement in the myth of Alcestis in Platos philosophical dialogue the Symposium (fourth century BCE). Plutarch writes that Persephone was identified with the spring season,[18] and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. [103] A gold ring from a tomb in Isopata depicts four women dancing among flowers, the goddess floating above them. [15] Later sources added that it was Aphrodite and Eros who caused Hades to fall in love with Persephone in the first place.[16]. Persephone, both individually and together with other gods, was also honored through festival and ritual at numerous other sites, including Mantinea, Argos, Patrae, Smyrna, and Acharaca. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. They were produced in Locri during the first half of the 5th century BC and offered as votive dedications at the Locrian sanctuary of Persephone. [82], The hero Orpheus once descended into the underworld seeking to take back to the land of the living his late wife Eurydice, who died when a snake bit her. https://www.worldhistory.org/persephone/. As a result of his affair with Demeter, Persephone was born. In this guise, she was seen as a protectress in the after-life, although Hesiod repeatedly describes her as 'dread Persephone' in his Theogony. In some accounts, Zeus had given his consent to the abduction, the location of the crime being traditionally placed in either Sicily (famed for its fertility) or Asia. The famous Eleusinian Mysteries, religious rites honoring Demeter and Persephone/Kore, were performed there. Demeters terrible rage was ended only through the intervention of Zeus, who sent the messenger god Hermes to persuade Hades to return Persephone to Demeter. In many ancient cults the goddess, along with her mother Demeter, is associated with vegetation and grain. According to one source, she was the one who allowed Orpheus to bring his dead wife Eurydice back from the Underworld, provided he did not look back while leading her up (a condition that Orpheus failed to meet). Other festivals celebrated Persephone in connection with the institution of marriage (rather than with Demeter and agriculture). 2023. https://mythopedia.com/topics/persephone. Demeter arrived at the palace disguised as an old woman, where she was treated kindly by Queen Metaneira and King Celeus. Hades told Hermes he would release Persephoneas long as she had not tasted food while in the Underworld. When Persephone found out, she jealously trampled Minthe and turned her into a plant: garden mint.[27]. [6] The Orphic version of Persephone, on the other hand, was a daughter of Zeus and Rhea,[7] while an Arcadian version of Persephone called Despoina was the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon.[8]. [21], Persephone also featured in the myths of a handful of heroes and mortals who descended to and returned from the Underworld. Books [98] In Eleusis, in a ritual, one child ("pais") was initiated from the hearth. Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane. In the hymn, Persephone eventually returns from the underworld and is reunited with her mother near Eleusis. The place where the ruins of the Sanctuary of Persephone were brought to light is located at the foot of the Mannella hill, near the walls (upstream side) of the polis of Epizephyrian Locri. [96] The depiction of the goddess is similar to later images of "Anodos of Pherephata". After all, mythology is storytelling at its finest. In this guise she is most often referred to as Kore, signifying both 'daughter' and 'maiden'. World History Encyclopedia. But Hades wouldn't accept her disapproval. Plato, for example, interpreted the name as she who touches things that are in motion (epaph tou pheromenou), a reference to Persephones wisdom (to touch things that are in motion implies an understanding of the cosmos, which is constantly in motion).[1]. In Cyzicus, where Persephone was worshipped under the title Soteira, her festival was called either the Soteria,[47] the Pherephattia,[48] or the Koreia. Before Persephone was abducted by Hades, the shepherd Eumolpus and the swineherd Eubuleus saw a girl in a black chariot driven by an invisible driver being carried off into the earth which had violently opened up. A Visual Who's Who of Greek Mythology. [59], In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD),[60] Persephone is described as the daughter of Zeus and Rhea. Sure enough, Helios was able to tell Demeter how Hades had abducted her daughter.[17]. He caught her and raped her. Persephone and Demeter were intimately connected with the Thesmophoria, a widely-spread Greek festival of secret women-only rituals. The goose flew to a hollow cave and hid under a stone; when Persephone took up the stone in order to retrieve the bird, water flowed from that spot, and hence the river received the name Hercyna. Demeter had a kind and beautiful daughter, called Persephone, who she loved very much. Persephone Mosaic, AmphipolisNot Specified (Public Domain). Persephone shared many other temples with Demeter, though she also had several temples of her own; the one at Epizephyrian Locris (a Greek colony in southern Italy) is an important example. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. It honored Demeter in her connection with Persephone, the queen of the Underworld. Published online 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e914950. In various other myths, Persephone is the mother of Dionysos (with Zeus, who is also her father) - although Semele is the more usual candidate - and squabbles with Aphrodite for the attentions of devilishly handsome Adonis, the two settling to share the famous lover in split shifts. Demeter then hides Persephone in a cave; but Zeus, in the form of a serpent, enters the cave and rapes Persephone. 89 Bernab; Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History 5.75.4; Hyginus, Fabulae 155; Hesychius, Lexicon, s.v. [20], Persephone was the queen of the Underworld and so ruled over all mortals who had died.