Persephone

Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was the wife of Hades and queen of the dead. Her abduction by Hades and her mother’s search for her form the central myth of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the rule that she spends part of each year below the earth and the rest with the gods above is the best-known ancient story about her.

Persephone’s Role

Persephone’s Parents and Name

In Hesiod’s Theogony, Zeus went to the bed of Demeter, who bore white-armed Persephone, “whom Aidoneus seized from her mother; and wise Zeus gave her to him” (Hesiod, Theogony 912–914). The Homeric Hymn to Demeter says the same. Apollodorus also names Zeus as her father, but in one passage he names the river Styx as her mother (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.1); the Hymn and Hesiod give Demeter. Her name appears in Homer as Persephoneia (Odyssey 10.491), and the Roman form is Proserpina, used by Ovid. As Demeter’s daughter she is also called Kore, “the Maiden” (Apollodorus, Library 1.5.3).

Homer calls her “dread” (epaine Persephoneia, Iliad 9.457) and “pure” (hagne Persephoneia, Odyssey 11.386).

Persephone and the Underworld

In Homer, Hades and Persephone rule together in the house of the dead. Odysseus goes “to the house of Hades and dread Persephone” to consult Teiresias (Odyssey 10.490–495), and it is Persephone who sends the shades of famous women to him and later scatters them, and whom Odysseus fears might send up the head of the Gorgon against him (Odyssey 11.225–227, 11.385–386, 11.633–635). In the Iliad, “Zeus of the underworld and dread Persephone” fulfil the curses of Amyntor, and Althaea calls on Hades and Persephone when she curses her son Meleager (Iliad 9.454–457, 9.566–569). Hades tells her in the Hymn that she will rule over all that lives and creeps, will hold the greatest honours among the gods, and will punish those who do not appease her with sacrifices (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 364–369).

The Abduction of Persephone

The fullest account is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Ovid tells the story in Metamorphoses 5, and Apollodorus gives a short summary (Library 1.5.1–3).

Persephone and Hades

In the Hymn, Persephone is playing with the daughters of Oceanus and gathering flowers: roses, crocus, violets, hyacinth and a narcissus that Earth had grown as a snare for the girl, at the wish of Zeus, to please Hades (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1–14). As she reached for it, the earth opened in the Nysian plain and Hades, the son of Cronus, rushed out with his immortal horses, seized her and carried her off in his golden chariot while she cried out to her father (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 15–21). The Hymn names Zeus as the one who gave her to Hades (3–4). No one heard her cry except Hecate in her cave and Helios, the son of Hyperion (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 22–27).

Demeter searched for nine days with torches, until Hecate, who had heard the cry but not seen the abductor, went with her to Helios, who told her that Zeus had given the girl to Hades (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 47–89). In her anger she left Olympus and, in the Hymn, kept the seed hidden in the earth, so that the whole human race would have starved had Zeus not acted (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 305–313). He sent Hermes to the dark realm to persuade Hades to bring Persephone back into the light (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 334–339).

How many Pomegranate Seeds did Persephone eat?

Hades did not refuse. But before she left, he secretly gave her a honey-sweet pomegranate seed to eat, so that she would not stay for ever with her mother (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 371–374). She later tells Demeter that he forced it on her (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 411–413). In the Hymn she eats one seed. Apollodorus also has one seed, given by Hades; Ascalaphus, son of Acheron, bore witness against her, and Demeter laid a heavy rock on him in Hades (Library 1.5.3). Ovid has her pick a pomegranate in the gardens of the underworld and eat seven grains, seen only by Ascalaphus, whom she turned into an owl (Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.533–550). In Ovid’s Fasti she eats three seeds (Fasti 4.607–608). The number is not fixed in the sources: one, three or seven, never six.

Persephone and the Seasons

In the Hymn, Zeus sends Rhea to bring Demeter back to the gods and promises her any honours she chooses. He grants that her daughter will spend the third part of the revolving year below in the gloom, and two parts with her mother and the other immortals (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 441–447; repeated 463–465). Apollodorus gives the same split: a third of every year with Pluto and the rest with the gods (Apollodorus, Library 1.5.3). Ovid has Jupiter divide the year equally, so that she is queen of the two realms and spends as many months with her mother as with her husband (Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.564–567); in the Fasti she is to be in heaven for six months (Fasti 4.613–614). The earth bears fruit again when Demeter is reconciled.

Persephone and the Eleusinian Mysteries

The Hymn ends with Demeter showing her rites to the kings of Eleusis, Triptolemus, Diocles, Eumolpus and Celeus, and ordering them to perform them. It calls blessed the man who has seen them, and says the uninitiated will have a different lot after death (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 473–482).

Persephone in Other Myths

Persephone and Adonis

In Apollodorus, Aphrodite hid the infant Adonis in a chest and gave him to Persephone to keep. When Persephone saw how beautiful he was, she would not give him back. Zeus settled the quarrel by dividing the year into three: Adonis would spend one part by himself, one with Persephone and one with Aphrodite. Adonis was later killed by a boar while hunting (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.4). In Apollodorus the boar is sent through the anger of Artemis, not Persephone.

Persephone and Minthe

Strabo reports that near Pylos there is a mountain named after Minthe, who was said to have been the concubine of Hades, was trampled under foot by Kore, and was changed into the plant mint (Strabo 8.3.14).

Persephone’s Children

Neither Homer, Hesiod nor the Homeric Hymn to Demeter gives Persephone a child by Hades or by anyone else, and no ancient source used here names a child of Hades and Persephone. In the later Orphic tradition, followed by the epic poet Nonnus, Zeus came to Persephone in the form of a serpent, and their son was Zagreus, the first Dionysus, who was torn apart by the Titans (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 31, 48).

Persephone the Influential Queen

Persephone and the Visiting Heroes

Persephone is repeatedly shown deciding what happens to living visitors. She granted Teiresias, alone among the dead, that his mind stayed whole (Odyssey 10.493–495). In Apollodorus, Alcestis died in place of her husband Admetus and Persephone sent her up again, although some said Heracles fought with Hades to bring her back (Library 1.9.15). When Heracles came for Cerberus, Hades told him to take the dog if he could overpower it without his weapons; the herdsman of Hades’ cattle, whose ribs Heracles broke, was let off at Persephone’s request (Library 2.5.12).

Orpheus went down to Hades for his dead wife Eurydice and persuaded Pluto to send her up, on condition that he did not look back before reaching home (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.2). In Ovid, neither the queen of the underworld nor its king could refuse his song (Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.46–48).

Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, and Theseus agreed to marry daughters of Zeus. After they carried off Helen, Theseus went down to Hades to win Persephone as a bride for Pirithous; Hades tricked them into sitting on the Chair of Forgetfulness, where they grew fast to the seat, and Heracles later freed Theseus (Apollodorus, Epitome 1.23–24).

Persephone Sources

Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1–27, 47–89, 305–313, 334–339, 364–374, 411–413, 441–447, 463–465, 473–482; Hesiod, Theogony 912–914; Homer, Odyssey 10.490–495, 11.225–227, 11.385–386, 11.633–635, Iliad 9.454–457, 9.566–569; Apollodorus, Library 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.5.1–3, 1.9.15, 2.5.12, 3.14.4, Epitome 1.23–24; Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.533–550, 5.564–567, 10.46–48; Ovid, Fasti 4.607–614; Strabo 8.3.14; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 31, 48.

See Also: Hades, Demeter, Zeus, Hecate, Hermes, Adonis, Pirithous, The Underworld