Tears of Fire: A Woman’s Account of a Journey Through the Underworld

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But besides these forms of the name, we also find Persephassa, Phersephassa, Persephatta, Phersephatta.

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Pherrephassa, Pherephatta, and Phersephoneia, for which various etymologies have been proposed. The Latin Proserpina, which is probably only a corruption of the Greek, was erroneously derived by the Romans from proserpere , "to shoot forth. Being the infernal goddess of death, she is also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx Apollod. Homer describes her as the wife of Hades, and the formidable, venerable, and majestic queen of the Shades, who exercises her power, and carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead, along with her husband.

Groves sacred to her are said by Homer to be in the western extremity of the earth, on the frontiers of the lower world, which is itself called the house of Persephone. The story of her being carried off by Pluto, against her will, is not mentioned by Homer, who simply describes her as his wife and queen; and her abduction is first mentioned by Hesiod Theog.

Persephone

Zeus, it is said, advised Pluto, who was in love with the beautiful Persephone, to carry her off, as her mother, Demeter, was not likely to allow her daughter to go down to Hades. Pluto accordingly carried her off while she was gathering flowers with Artemis and Athena. Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, searched for her all over the earth with torches, until at length she discovered the place of her abode.

Her anger at the abduction obliged Zeus to request Pluto to send Persephone or Cora, i. Pluto indeed complied with the request, but first gave her a kernel of a pomegranate to eat, whereby she became doomed to the lower world, and an agreement was made that Persephone should spend one third later writers say one half of every year in Hades with Pluto, and the remaining two thirds with the gods above. The place where Persephone was said to have been carried off, is different in the various local traditions. The Sicilians, among whom her worship was probably introduced by the Corinthian and Megarian colonists, believed that Pluto found her in the meadows near Enna, and that the well Cyane arose on the spot where he descended with her into the lower world.

The Cretans thought that their own island had been the scene of the rape Schol. Later accounts place the rape in Attica, near Athens Schol.

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The story according to which Persephone spent one part of the year in the lower world, and another with the gods above, made her, even with the ancients, the symbol of vegetation which shoots forth in spring, and the power of which withdraws into the earth at other seasons of the year. Hence Plutarch identifies her with spring, and Cicero De Nat. In the mysteries of Eleusis, the return of Cora from the lower world was regarded as the symbol of immortality, and hence she was frequently represented on sarcophagi. In the mystical theories of the Orphics, and what are called the Platonists, Cora is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature, who both produces and destroys every thing Orph.

The surnames which are given to her by the poets, refer to her character as queen of the lower world and of the dead, or to her symbolic meaning which we have pointed out above. She was commonly worshipped along with Demeter, and with the same mysteries, as for example, with Demeter Cabeiria in Boeotia. Her worship further is mentioned at Thebes, which Zeus is said to have given to her as an acknowledgment for a favour she had bestowed on him Schol.

The Eleusinian mysteries belonged to Demeter and Cora in common, and to her alone were dedicated the mysteries celebrated at Athens in the month of Anthesterion. In works of art Persephone is seen very frequently: Hesiod, Theogony ff trans.

Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 1 ff trans. Evelyn-White Greek epic C7th or 6th B. There are innumerable other sources which describe Persephone as the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Apollodorus, in his list of Zeus' divine children, curiously calls Persephone a daughter of Zeus and Styx,. Elsewhere he gives the usual account where her mother is Demeter. Aldrich Greek mythographer C2nd A. In one obscure myth Persephone was accredited with creation of mankind from clay in place of the usual Prometheus.

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A divine dispute ensued over which god should possess him, with the result that he was awarded to Zeus and Gaia in life, and to Persephone in death. Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae trans. Grant Roman mythographer C2nd A. She took it up thoughtfully and began to fashion a man. While she was pondering on what she had done, Jove [Zeus] came up; Cura asked him to give the image life, and Jove readily grant this. When Cura wanted to give it her name, Jove forbade, and said that his name should be given it.

But while they were disputing about the name, Tellus [Gaia] Earth arose and said that it should have her name, since she had given her own body. They took Saturnus [Kronos Cronus ] for judge; he seems to have decided for them: Jove, since you gave him life [text missing, presumably he was given control of the fate of men] let her [Persephone] receive his body [after death]; since Cura fashioned him; let her [Gaia] posses him as long as he lives, but since there is controversy about his name, let him be called homo , since he seems to be made from humus. Orphic Hymn 30 to Dionysus trans.

Taylor Greek hymns C3rd B. Eubouleos [Dionysos-Zagreos], whom the leaves of vines adorn, of Zeus and Persephoneia occultly born in beds ineffable. Orphic Hymn 46 to Licnitus: Orphic Hymn 71 to Melinoe: Hence, partly black thy limbs and partly white, from Plouton dark, from Zeus ethereal bright.

Orphic Hymn 70 to the Eumenides: Orphic Hymn 29 to Persephone: The Eumenides' [Erinyes'] source [mother], fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' [Zeus Khthonios or Haides] ineffable and secret seeds. In the Orphic myths, the maiden goddess Persephone was seduced by Zeus in the guise of a serpent. She bore him a son, the godling Zagreus, who, when Zeus placed him upon the throne of heaven, was attacked and dismembered by the Titanes.

His heart was recovered and he was reborn through Semele as the god Dionysos. An infernal goddess named Melinoe probably Hekate was also said to have been born from their union. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. Oldfather Greek historian C1st B. For according to them there was born of Zeus and Persephone a Dionysos who is called by some Sabazios Sabazius and whose birth and sacrifices and honours are celebrated at night and in secret, because of the disgraceful conduct which is a consequence of the gatherings. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. When she was made pregnant by this [with the god Dionysos].

Melville Roman epic C1st B. Rouse Greek epic C5th A. This was a son born to Zeus in dragonbed by Persephoneia, the consort of the blackrobed king of the underworld [Haides]; when Zeus put on a deceiving shape of many coils, as a gentle drakon twining around her in lovely curves, and ravished the maidenhood of unwedded Persephoneia; though she was hidden when all that dwelt in Olympos were bewitched by this one girl, rivals in love for the marriageable maid, and offered their dowers for an unsmirched bridal.

Hermes had not yet gone to the bed of Peitho, and he offered his rod as gift to adorn her chamber. Apollon produced his melodious harp as a marriage-gift. Ares brought spear and cuirass for the wedding, and shield as bride-gift. Lemnian Hephaistos Hephaestus held out a curious necklace of many colours, new made and breathing still of the furnace, poor hobbler! For he had already, though unwilling, rejected his former bride Aphrodite, when he spied her rioting with Ares. And father Zeus was much more bewitched by Persephoneia.

When Zeus spied the virgin beauty of her shape, his eye ran ahead of him to guide all the Erotes Loves , and could not have enough of Persephone; in his heart storms of unsleeping passion raged without ceasing, and gradually a greater furnace of the Paphian [Aphrodite] was kindled from a small spark; the gaze of lovemaddened Zeus was enslaved by the lovely breast of the goddess.

Once she was amusing herself with a resplendent bronze plate, which reflected her face like a judge of beauty; and she confirmed the image of her shape by this free voiceless herald, testing the unreal form in the shadow of the mirror, and smiling at the mimic likeness. Thus Persephone gazed in the selfgraved portrait of her face, and beheld the self-impressed aspect of a false Persephoneia.

Once in the scorching steam of thirsty heat, the girl would cease the loomtoilling labours of her shuttle at midday to shun the tread of the parching season, and wipe the running sweat from her face; she loosed the modest bodice which held her breast so tight, and moistened her skin with a refreshing bath, floating in the cool running stream, and left behind her threads fixt on the loom of Pallas [Athena]. But she could not escape the allseeing eye of Zeus.

He gazed at the whole body of Persephoneia, uncovered in her bath. The ruler of the universe, the charioteer of heaven, bowed his neck to desire--for all his greatness no thunderbolts, no lightnings helped him against Aphrodite in arms: Not the Father alone felt desire; but all that dwelt in Olympos had the same, struck by one bolt, and wooed for a union with Deo's divine daughter.

Then Deo lost the brightness of her rosy face, her swelling heart was lashed by sorrows.

PERSEPHONE FAMILY

She untied the fruitful frontlet [a wreath of corn-ears] from her head, and shook loose the long locks of hair over her neck, trembling for her girl; the cheeks of the goddess were moistened with self-running tears, in her sorrow that so many wooers had been stung with one fiery shot for a struggle of rival wooing, by maddening Eros Love , all contending together for their loves. From all the bounteous mother shrank, but specially she feared Hephaistos to be her daughter's lame bedfellow. All that dwelt in Olympos had the same, struck by one bolt [of desire], and wooed for a union with Deo's divine daughter [Persephone].

Then Deo [Demeter] lost the brightness of her rosy face, her swelling heart was lashed by sorrows. She hastened with quick foot to the house of Astraios Astraeus the god of prophecy [or more specifically astrology]. She laid her left hand on the knees of the kindly ancient, and with her right touched his deepflowing beard in supplication.

She recounted all her daughter's wooers and craved a comfortable oracle; for divinations can steal away anxieties by means of hopes to come. Nor did old Astraios refuse. He learnt the details of the day when her only child was new born, and the exact time and veritable course of the season which gave her birth; then he bent the turning fingers of his hands and measured the moving circle of the ever-recurring number counting from hand to hand in double exchange [reckoning the number of days in the years of her life on his fingers].

He called to a servant, and Asterion lifted a round revolving sphere, the shape of the sky, the image of the universe, and laid it upon the lid of a chest. Here the ancient got to work. He turned it upon its pivot, and directed this gaze round the circle of the Zodiac, scanning in this place and that the planets and fixt stars. When he had noticed everything and reckoned the circuit of the stars, he put away the ever-revolving sphere in its roomy box, the sphere with its curious surface; and in answer to the goddess he mouthed out a triple oracle of prophetic sound: You will see before marriage a false and secret bedfellow come unforeseen, a half-monster cunning-minded: But when Demeter Sicklebearer heard the hope of coming fruits, and how one uninvited and unbetrothed was to ravish her beloved maiden girl, she groaned and smiled at once, and hastening by the paths of high heaven with despondent step.

Persephone - Wikipedia

Then beside the drakon-manger she balanced the curved yoke over the two necks of the monsters, and fastened the untamed crawlers with the yokestrap, pressing their jaws about the crooktooth bit. So goldenbrown Deo in that grim car conveyed her girl hidden in a black veil of cloud.

Boreas the North-Wind roared like thunder against the passage of the wagon, but she whistled him down with her monster-driving whip, guiding the light wings of the quick drakons as they sped horselike along the course of the wind, through the sky and round the back-reaching cape of the Libyan Ocean.

Looking for a stony harbourage, she alighted among the Pelorian cliffs of Threepeak Sikelia Sicily near the Adriatic shores, where the restless briny flood is driven towards the west and bends round like a sickle, bringing the current in a curve to southwest from the north. And in the place where that River [Anapos] had often bathed the maiden Kyane Cyane. The goddess passed through the dark hall, and concealed her daughter well-secured in this hollow rock. Then she loosed the drakones dragons from the winged car; one she placed by the jutting rock on the right of the door, one on the left beside the stone-pointed barrier of the entry, to protect Persephoneia unseen.

There also she left Kalligeneia, her own fond nurse, with her baskets, and all that cleverhand Pallas [Athena] gives to make womankind sweat over their wool-spinning. Then she left her rounded chariot for the Nymphai to watch, in their lonely home among the rocks, and cut the air with her feet. The girl busied herself in carding fleeces of wool under the sharp teeth of the iron comb. She packed the wool on the distaff, and twirling spindle with many a twist and jerk ran round and around in dancing step, as the threads were spun and drawn through the fingers.

She fixed the first threads of the warp which begins the cloth, and gave them a turn round the beam, moving from end to end to and fro with unresting feet. She wove away, plying the rod and pulling the bobbin along through the threads, while she sang over the cloth to her cousin Athena the clever webster. You could not find how to escape your mating! No, a drakon was your mate, when Zeus changed his face and came, rolling in many a loving coil through the dark to the corner of the maiden's chamber, and shaking his hairy chaps: He licked the girl's form gently with wooing lips. By this marriage with the heavenly drakon, the womb of Persephone swelled with living fruit, and she bore Zagreus the horned baby, who by himself climbed upon the heavenly throne of Zeus and brandished lightning in his little hand, and newly born, lifted and carried thunderbolts in his tender fingers.

But Zagreus the heavenly Dionysos [Persephone's son] he would not defend, when he was cut up with knives! What made me angrier still, was that Kronides Cronides gave the starry heaven to Semele for a bridegift,--and Tartaros Tartarus to Persephoneia! Heaven is reserved for Apollon, Hermes lives in heaven--and you have this abode full of gloom! What good was it that he put on the deceiving shape of a serpent, and ravished the girdle of your inviolate maidenhood, if after bed he was to destroy your babe?

For Zeus, it seems, had intercourse with Persephone, and she gave birth to Dionysos Khthonios Chthonius. The popular Phoenician myth of the love of the goddess Ashtarte for Adon was adopted by the Greeks, who identified the goddesses of the tale with Aphrodite and Persepone. But when Persephone got a glimpse of Adonis, she refused to return him.

When the matter was brought to Zeus for arbitration, he divided the year into three parts and decreed that Adonis would spend one third of the year by himself, one third with Persephone, and the rest with Aphrodite. But Adonis added his own portion to Aphrodite's. Orphic Hymn 56 to Adonis trans. Calliope, the judge appointed by Jove, decided that each should posses him half of the year. Jones Greek geographer C1st B. Mair Greek poet C3rd A.

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