Thus, Persephones half-siblings included Demeters other children (Arion, Corybas, and Plutus) as well as the numerous children of the promiscuous Zeus (including Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus, Heracles, Perseusand many, many others). As the wife of Hades, Persephone was the queen of the Underworld. [65] This was when she was abducted by Hades according to Boeotian legend; a vase shows water birds accompany the goddesses Demeter and Hecate who are in search of the missing Persephone. "Wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te, (to the two queens and the king). The Cult of Demeter and the Maiden is found at Attica, in the main festivals Thesmophoria and Eleusinian mysteries and in a number of local cults. 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. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by and marriage to her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld.[6]. Burkert, Walter. [91], The location of Persephone's abduction is different in each local cult. [135] Scholar Timothy Gantz noted that Hades was often considered an alternate, cthonic form of Zeus, and suggested that it is likely Zagreus was originally the son of Hades and Persephone, who was later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, owing to the identification of the two fathers as the same being. The Greek popular religion, THE RAPE OF PERSEPHONE from The Theoi Project, The Princeton Encyclopedia of classical sites:Despoina, Flickr users' photos tagged with Persephone, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Persephone&oldid=1152093316, Pomegranate, seeds of grain, torch, flowers, and deer, Athanassakis, Apostolos N.; Wolkow, Benjamin M. (29 May 2013), This page was last edited on 28 April 2023, at 04:35. 89 Bernab; Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History 5.75.4; Hyginus, Fabulae 155; Hesychius, Lexicon, s.v. [39] Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, searched for her all over the earth with Hecate's torches. Lament for Bion: This poem from the second or first century BCE (sometimes speciously attributed to Moschus) tells of how Persephone allowed Orpheus to take his wife Eurydice back from the Underworld. Cartwright, Mark. She is married to Hades who is also her uncle. . In her iconography, Persephone was represented as a young woman, modestly clad in a robe and wearing either a diadem or a cylindrical crown called a polos on her head. She was also called Kore, which means "maiden" and grew up to be a lovely girl attracting the attention of many gods. Rhea-Demeter prophecies that Persephone will marry Apollo. She later stays in her mother's house, guarded by the Curetes. The Greek and Roman festivals honoring her and her mother, Ceres, emphasized Proserpine's return to the upper world in spring. Robert S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 2:117981. [21], Persephone also featured in the myths of a handful of heroes and mortals who descended to and returned from the Underworld. The location of this mythical place may simply be a convention to show that a magically distant chthonic land of myth was intended in the remote past.[35]. According to some authors, Persephone was so moved by this deed that she allowed Alcetis to return to the land of the living (in the more familiar version, though, Alcestis was brought back by Heracles). Help our mission to provide free history education to the world! As the two of them were led to the altar to be sacrificed, Persephone and Hades took pity on them and turned them into comets instead. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/persephone/. [120][121], At Locri, a city of Magna Graecia situated on the coast of the Ionian Sea in Calabria (a region of southern Italy), perhaps uniquely, Persephone was worshiped as protector of marriage and childbirth, a role usually assumed by Hera (in fact, Hera seems to have played no role in the public worship of the city[122]); in the iconography of votive plaques at Locri, her abduction and marriage to Hades served as an emblem of the marital state, children at Locri were dedicated to Proserpina, and maidens about to be wed brought their peplos to be blessed. This tradition comes from her conflation with the very old chthonic divinity Despoina ("[the] mistress"), whose real name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her mysteries. The surnames given to her by the poets refer to her role as queen of the lower world and the dead and to the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Persephone was an important element of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Thesmophoria festival and so the goddess was worshipped throughout the Greek world. Please donate to our server cost fundraiser 2023, so that we can produce more history articles, videos and translations. They also associated her with salvation: it was believed that she would grant a blissful afterlife to those who had been properly purified. Greek Religion. The Spring Witch by George Wilson (ca. Orphica frag. Helios, the Sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered where her daughter had been taken. The Rape of Proserpine by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1621/1622). Persephone was a beautiful young lady, just entering womanhood. Hesiod, Theogony 912ff. Whatever the exact significance, the association between Persephone and agriculture is firmly established in rituals, literature, and ancient art. 39,1, George Mylonas (1966) Mycenae and the Mycenean age" p. 159: Princeton University Press, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Persephone", sfn error: no target: CITEREFEdmonds2004 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFEdmonds2013 (. He then tricked Persephone into eating a handful of pomegranate seeds. The goddess rising symbolizes the springtime sprouting of shoots of grain from the earth. In her ritual and mythology, Persephone/Kore was also regarded as a goddess of all aspects of womanhood and female initiation, including girlhood, marriage, and childbearing. [88], Socrates in Plato's Cratylus previously mentions that Hades consorts with Persephone due to her wisdom. Odysseus sacrifices a ram to the chthonic goddess Persephone and the ghosts of the dead who drink the blood of the sacrificed animal. Proserpine, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1821-1882, Tate Modern Art Gallery, London. After all, mythology is storytelling at its finest. In Greek mythology, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter, and is the queen of . [5] But there were a handful of rival traditions surrounding Persephones parentage, including one in which she was the daughter of Zeus and Styx, an Oceanid who gave her name to one of the rivers of the Underworld. Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter in Greek mythology, appears in films, works of literature, and in popular culture, both as a goddess character and through the symbolic use of her name. Here annual festivities celebrated Persephone's marriage and her picking of flowers. (British Museum, London) A tondo from a red-figure kylix depicting Persephone and Hades. The Homeric Hymn places it in Nysa, an ancient city in Asia Minor. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities. Online version at the Topos Text Project. The Homeric Hymn then tells of how Demeter, realizing her daughter was missing, began a desperate search. The Gods of the Greeks. In the hymn, Persephone eventually returns from the underworld and is reunited with her mother near Eleusis. Ovid, Fasti 4.583ff. Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone.[40]. Therefore, Persephone's time in Hades would not equate with winter in the agricultural season but, rather, with summer. When Persephone was born, she had a monstrous form, with numerous eyes, an animals head, and horns. But Hades had tricked Persephone into eating somethinga handful of pomegranate seedswhile she was in the Underworld. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter and Zeus, was the wife of Hades and the Queen of the Underworld. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. This article was most recently revised and updated by, From Athena to Zeus: Basics of Greek Mythology, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Persephone-Greek-goddess, Perseus Digital Library - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology - Perse'phone, Persephone - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). In some local cults the feasts were dedicated to Demeter. Zeus had hundreds of affairs in Greek mythology, almost all of which produced gods, heroes, and monsters. Persephone, witnessing that, snatched the still living Euthemia and brought her to the Underworld. In a Linear B Mycenaean Greek inscription on a tablet found at Pylos dated 14001200 BC, John Chadwick reconstructed[a] the name of a goddess, *Preswa who could be identified with Perse, daughter of Oceanus and found speculative the further identification with the first element of Persephone. Hades, living alone in the dark underworld, happened to glimpse up one summer day to see Persephone frolicking in the fields with her friends and fell instantly in love. We want people all over the world to learn about history. Astraeus warns her that Persephone will be ravished and impregnated by a serpent. Homeric Hymn 2.9094, trans. It establishes the relationship of Hades and P. [100] The megaron of Eleusis is quite similar to the "megaron" of Despoina at Lycosura. Corrections? A recent spectacular find is the large pebble mosaic, measuring 4.5 by 3 metres from the Hellenistic tomb at Amphipolis, which again depicts the god Hades abducting Persephone in a chariot led by Hermes. Accompanied by the classic, sensual paintings of Fredric Lord Leighton and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Santo portrays Persephone not as a victim but as a woman in quest of sexual depth and power, transcending the role of daughter, though ultimately returning to it as an awakened Queen. Meanwhile, Demeter searched the earth for her lost divine daughter and though Helios (or Hermes) told her of her daughter's fate, she, nevertheless, continued her wanderings until she finally arrived at Eleusis. The story that Persephone spent four months of each year in the underworld was no doubt meant to account for the barren appearance of Greek fields in full summerafter harvest, before their revival in the autumn rains, when they are plowed and sown. As a goddess of the underworld, Persephone was given euphemistically friendly names. 110b; Lactantius, Divine Institutions 23. London: Methuen, 1962. Zeus agreed but told him that the girl's mother, Demeter, would never approve. Inscriptions refer to "the Goddesses" accompanied by the agricultural god Triptolemos (probably son of Gaia and Oceanus),[116] and "the God and the Goddess" (Persephone and Plouton) accompanied by Eubuleus who probably led the way back from the underworld. Cite This Work He asked Zeus for his daughter's hand in marriage. Persephone was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. Persephone, in her guise as Queen of the Underworld, was often appealed to in curse tablets and on the inscribed gold leaves buried with the dead followers of Orphism which gave instructions on how to conduct themselves in the after-life. True to her double nature, Persephone was imagined as having two homes: one on Olympus with her mother, Demeter, and the other in the Underworld with her husband, Hades. [56], According to the Greek tradition a hunt-goddess preceded the harvest goddess. 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. She was her mother's greatest . 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. Learn more about our mission. The cults of Persephone and Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the Thesmophoria were based on old agrarian cults. [43] With the later writers Ovid and Hyginus, Persephone's time in the underworld becomes half the year. Books Demeter, worried that Persephone might end up marrying Hephaestus, consults the astrological god Astraeus. Persephone, often known simply as Kore (Maiden), was a daughter of Zeus and Demeter. It is possible that the association between the two was known by the 3rd centuryBC, when the poet Callimachus may have written about it in a now-lost source. Zurich: Artemis, 1997. H. G. Evelyn-White. [47] When Demeter and her daughter were reunited, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for some months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. [125] Representations of myth and cult on the clay tablets (pinakes) dedicated to this goddess reveal not only a 'Chthonian Queen,' but also a deity concerned with the spheres of marriage and childbirth. She became the queen of the underworld after her . There is evidence of a cult in Eleusis from the Mycenean period;[110] however, there are not sacral finds from this period. Persephone emerges from a cleft in the earth. The infant Dionysus was later dismembered by the Titans, before being reborn as the second Dionysus, who wandered the earth spreading his mystery cult before ascending to the heavens with his second mother, Semele. [114] Poseidon appears as a horse, as usually happens in Northern European folklore. Her attribute was poppy and pomegranate fruit, so she was also associated with spring, flowers, life, and vegetation before becoming queen of the underworld. The premise of the play is that the women gathered at the Thesmophoria are plotting against the tragedian Euripides. A central figure in ancient mythology, Persephone has interactions with It honored Demeter in her connection with Persephone, the queen of the Underworld. [21] The Orphic Persephone is said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus, Iacchus, Zagreus,[16] and the little-attested Melino. This Macaria is asserted to be the daughter of Hades, but no mother is mentioned. [48], The 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda introduces a goddess of a blessed afterlife assured to Orphic mystery initiates. Persephone was the daughter of the king of the Greek Gods Zeus and the goddess Demeter. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Theoi Project. Upon learning of the abduction . [85], When Echemeia, a queen of Kos, ceased to offer worship to Artemis, the goddess shot her with an arrow. Makariai, with English translation at. [59], In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD),[60] Persephone is described as the daughter of Zeus and Rhea. Persephone. Published online 20002017. Lament for Bion 12324; Virgil, Georgics 4.486ff. Plato: There is a brief summary of Persephones involvement in the myth of Alcestis in Platos philosophical dialogue the Symposium (fourth century BCE). In Greek mythology, the goddess, as wife of Hades, is the Queen of the Underworld and takes her other name, Persephone. She was a dual deity, since, in addition to presiding over the dead with intriguing autonomy, as the daughter of Demeter, she was also a goddess of fertility. She is unsuccessful, and Persephone ends up giving birth to one of the early Dionysuses. Homeric Hymns: The second Homeric Hymn (seventh/sixth century BCE)one of the longest and most important of the hymnsis dedicated to Demeter and tells the story of the abduction of Persephone.

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