Persephone

This article is about the Greek goddess. For other uses, see Persephone (disambiguation).

Persephone
Equivalents
Roman equivalent	Proserpina

In Greek mythology, Persephone /pərˈsɛfəniː/, also called Kore (the maiden) /ˈkɔːriː/, is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld. Homer describes her as the formidable, venerable majestic queen of the shades, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead. Kore was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld The myth of her abduction represents her function as the personification of vegetation which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence she is also associated with spring and with the seeds of the fruits of the fields. Similar myths appear in the Orient, in the cults of male gods like Attis, Adonis and Osiris, and in Minoan Crete.

Persephone as a vegetation goddess (Kore) and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon, and promised to the initiated a more enjoyable prospect after death. The mystic Persephone is further said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysos, Iacchus, or Zagreus. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on very old agrarian cults of agricultural communities.

Persephone was commonly worshipped along with Demeter, and with the same mysteries. To her alone were dedicated the mysteries celebrated at Athens in the month of Anthesterion. In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed; often carrying a sheaf of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the act of being carried off by Hades.

In Roman mythology, she is called Proserpina.

Her name

Etymology

Triptolemus, Demeter, and Persephone by the Triptolemos Painter,ca 470BC

In a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription on a tablet found at Pylos dated 1400-1200 BC, John Chadwick reconstructs the name of a goddess *Preswa who could be identified with Persa, daughter of Oceanus and finds speculative the further identification with the first element of Persephone. Persephonē (Greek: Περσεφόνη) is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature. The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia (Περσεφονεία, Persephonēia). In other dialects she was known under variant names: Persephassa (Περσεφάσσα), Persephatta (Περσεφάττα), or simply Korē (Κόρη, "girl, maiden"). Plato calls her Pherepapha (Φερέπαφα) in his Cratylus, "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion". There also the forms Perifona (Πηριφόνα) and Phersephassa (Φερσέφασσα). The existence of so many different forms shows how difficult it was for the Greeks to pronounce the word in their own language and suggests that the name has probably a pre-Greek origin.

An alternative etymology is from φέρειν φόνον, pherein phonon, "to bring (or cause) death".

Another mythical personage of the name of Persephione is called a daughter of Minyas and the mother of Chloris, a nymph of spring, flower and new growth. The Minyans were a group considered autochthonous, but some scholars assert that they were the first wave of Proto-Greek speakers in the second milemnium BC.

The Roman Proserpina

The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who used the dialectal variant Proserpinē (Προσερπινη). Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, a name erroneously derived by the Romans from "proserpere", "to shoot forth" and as such became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance.

At Locri, perhaps uniquely, Persephone was the protector of marriage, a role usually assumed by Hera; 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.

Nestis

In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles, c. 490–430 BC, describing a correspondence among four deities and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone: "Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus. And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears."

Of the four deities of Empedocles's elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo—Nestis is a euphemistic cult title—for she was also the terrible Queen of the Dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was euphemistically named simply as Kore or "the Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld.

Origins

Lady of Auxerre Louvre-An Archaic (640 BC) image from Crete, probably a version of the Minoan Goddess identified with Kore.

The myth of the rape of the vegetation goddess is Pre-Greek. In the original Near eastern myth of the primitive agricultural societies, every year the fertility goddess bore the "god of the new year", who then became her lover , and died immediately in order to be reborn and face the same destiny. Similar myths appear in the Orient in the cults of Attis, Adonis and Osiris , and in Minoan Crete, where the myth is related with a female vegetation goddess.

The cult of Persephone and Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the Thesmophoria was based on very old agrarian cults. Ancient cults like age-old cults of the dead, worship of animal headed gods, and rituals for the new crop , had their position in Greek religion because they were connected with daily or seasonal tasks and concecrated by immemorial practices. A lot of ancient beliefs was based on initiation in jealously guided mysteries (secret rites) because they oferred prospects after death more enjoyable than the final end at the gloomy space of the Greek Hades. However it is doubtful if the idea of immortality which appears in the syncretistic religions of Near East existed in the Eleusinian mysteries at the very beginning.

It seems that the Eleusinian mysteries were established during the Mycenean period. In the mysteries Demeter and Kore were usually referred to as "the two goddesses" or "the mistresses" in historical times. The names Demeter and Kore are Greek, and this probably indicates that the Greeks adopted these divinities during their wandering , and that they were later fused with local divinities in the ancient cults. In the Mycenean Greek tablets dated 1400-1200 BC , the "two mistresses and the king" are mentioned. John Chadwick believes that these were the precursor divinities of Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. The cult was originally private, and we have no information for it, but it seems that it had similarities with the cult of Despoina , "the mistress" in isolated Arcadia . Despoine was one of her surnames just as the surname of Persephone Kore. Demeter and Persephone , were the two Great Goddesses, "the mistresses" of the Arcadian mysteries . Despoina, whose name was not allowed to be revealed to the not initiated, was daughter of Demeter, who was united with the god of the storms and earthquakes Poseidon Hippios (horse). The union of the fertility goddess with the beast in a ritual copulation is an old Near Eastern myth, which appears in many primitive agricultural societies. Processions of women with animal-masks in a ritual dance, or processions of daemons in front of a goddess appear in the temple of Despoina at Lycosura, and on Mycenean frescoes and goldrings.

Kerenyi theorizes that the cult of Pesephone was the continuation of the worship of a Minoan Great goddess, and he identifies her with the nameless “mistress of the labyrinth “ who appears in a Mycenean Greek inscription from Knossos in Crete. He suggests that the Greeks gave to her euphemistically the name Ariadne ( derived from αγνή, hagne, "pure"). . The Greeks used to give to the deities of the underworld euphemistically friendly names, and such were the common epithets of Persephone despoina , "mistress" and Hagne, "pure" . . However besides the evident similarities, Burkert notifies that up to now we don’t know to what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and Mycenean religion It seems that the Minoan vegetation goddess Ariadne was absorbed by more powerful divinities. She survived in Greek folklore as the consort of Dionysos, with whom she was worshipped in some local cults like the Anthesteria.

Greek mythology

Abduction myth

See also: Rape of Persephone

The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton (1891)

Persephone used to live far away from the other deities, a goddess within Nature herself before the days of planting seeds and nurturing plants. In the Olympian telling, the gods Hermes, Ares, Apollo, and Hephaestus had all wooed Persephone; but Demeter rejected all their gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of the Olympian deities.

The story of her abduction by Pluto against her will, is traditionally referred to as the Rape of Persephone. It is first mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony. Zeus, it is said, advised Pluto (Hades) 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. Persephone was gathering flowers with Artemis and Athena, the Homeric hymn says—or Leucippe, or Oceanids—in a field when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth. Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, searched for her all over the earth with torches. 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. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered the place of her abode. Finally, Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone.

Hades indeed complied with the request, but first he tricked her giving her a kernel of a pomegranate to eat. She ate four seeds, which correspond to the dry summer months in Greece. It was a rule of the Fates that whoever consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Persephone was released by Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, but she was obliged to spend four months of a year in the underworld, and the remaining two thirds with the gods above.

The various local traditions each place Persephone's abduction in a different locatiom. The Sicilians, among whom her worship was probably introduced by the Corinthian and Megarian colonists, believed that Hades found her in the meadows near Enna, and that a well 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, and the Eleusinians mentioned the Nysaean plain in Boeotia, and said that Persephone had descended with Hades into the lower world at the entrance of the western Oceanus. Later accounts place the rape in Attica, near Athens, or near Eleusis.

In some versions, Ascalaphus informed the other deities that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. 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. This is an origin story to explain the seasons.

In an earlier version, Hecate rescued Persephone. On an Attic red-figured bell krater of ca 440 BC in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Persephone is rising as if up stairs from a cleft in the earth, while Hermes stands aside; Hecate, holding two torches, looks back as she leads her to the enthroned Demeter.

The tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda introduces a goddess of a blessed afterlife assured to Orphic mystery initiates. This Macaria is asserted to be the daughter of Hades, but no mother is mentioned.

Pluto-Interpretetion of the myth

In the myth Pluto abducts Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm. Pluto ( Πλούτων, Ploutōn) was a name for the ruler of the underworld; the god was also known as Hades, a name for the underworld itself. The name Pluton was conflated with that of Ploutos ( Πλούτος Ploutos, "wealth"), a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because Pluto as a chthonic god ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility.

In the Theogony of Hesiod Demeter was united with the hero Iasion in Crete and she bore Ploutos , who can make everyone rich. This union seems to be a reference to a hieros gamos (ritual copulation) to ensure the earth's fertility. This ritual copulation appears in Minoan Crete, in many Near Eastern agricultural societies, and also in the Anthesteria

Nilsson believes that the original cult of Ploutos ( or Pluto) in Eleusis was similar with the Minoan cult of the "divine child", who died in order to be reborn. The child was abandoned by his mother and then it was brought up by the powers of nature. Similar myths appear in the cults of Hyakinthos (Amyklai), Erichthonios (Athens) , and later in the cult of Dionysos.

The Greek version of the abduction myth, is related with the corn which was the most important and rare in the Greek environment, and the return (ascent) of Persephone was celebrated at the autumn sowing. Pluto (Ploutos) represents the wealth of the corn that was stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi), during summer months. Similar subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for burials and Pluto is fused with Hades , the King of the realm of the dead. During summer months, the Greek Corn-Maiden (Kore) is lying in the corn of the underground silos, in the realm of Hades and she is fused with Persephone, the Queen of the underworld. At the beginning of the autumn, when the seeds of the old crop are laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter, for at that time the old crop and the new meet each other. For the initiated this union was the symbol of the eternity of human life that flows from the generations which spring from each other.

Elysion

Hesiod refers to the island of the "happy dead" and it is the Elysion, where according to an old Minoan belief, the departed could have a different, but happier existence. Elysion is probably counterpart with Eleusis, the city of the Eleusinian mysteries, and it may have been oferred like a reward to the initiated. The Greeks believed that only the beloved of the gods could exist there. Pindar in some fragments speeks for the immortality of the souls, which may spent in Elysion a happy eternity. In Odyssey Homer carries the old belief to the ideal island for mortals Scheria, the imaginary perfect world that was offered to the future emigrants. This island, which the tradition relates with Elysion, became the lost dream of the Greek world.

The Arcadian myths

The primitive myths of isolated Arcadia seem to be related with the first Greek-speaking people who came from the north-east during the bronze age. Despoina, (the mistress) the goddess of the Arcadian mysteries , is the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon Hippios (horse), who represents the river spirit of the underworld that appears as a horse as often happens in northern-European folklore. He pursues the mare-Demeter and from the union she bears the horse Arion and a daughter who originally had the form or the shape of a mare. The two goddesses were not clearly separated and they were closely connected with the springs and the animals. They were related with the god of rivers and springs; Poseidon and especially with Artemis, the Mistress of the Animals who was the first nymph. According to the Greek tradition a hunt-goddess preceded the harvest goddess. In Arcadia Demeter and Persephone were oftenly called Despoinai (Δέσποιναι, "the mistresses") in historical times. They are the two Great Goddesses of the Arcadian cults, and evidently they come from a more primitive religion. The Greek god Poseidon probably substituted the companion (Paredros, Πάρεδρος) of the Minoan Great goddess . in the Arcadian mysteries.

Queen of the Underworld

Seated goddess, probably Persephone on her throne in the underworld, Severe style ca 480–60, found at Tarentum, Magna Graecia (Pergamon Museum, Berlin)

Persephone held an ancient role as the dread queen of the Underworld, within which tradition it was forbidden to speak her name. 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 to her mysteries. As goddess of death she was also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx, the river that formed the boundary between Earth and the underworld. Homer describes her as the formidable, venerable majestic queen of the shades, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead, along with her husband Hades. In the reformulation of Greek mythology expressed in the Orphic Hymns, Dionysus and Melinoe are separately called children of Zeus and Persephone. Groves sacred to her stood at the western extremity of the earth on the frontiers of the lower world, which itself was called "house of Persephone".

Her central myth served as the context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to initiates.

Titles and functions

The Eleusinian trio: Persephone, Triptolemus and Demeter on a marble bas-relief from Eleusis, 440-430 BC

The epithets of Persephone reveal her double function as chthonic and vegetation goddess. The surnames given to her by the poets refer to her character as Queen of the lower world and the dead, or her symbolic meaning of the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Her common name as a vegetation goddess is Kore and in Arcadia she was worshipped under the title Despoina "the mistress", a very old chthonic divinity. Plutarch identifies her with spring and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the Eleusinian mysteries her return is the symbol of immortality and hence she was frequently represented on sarcophagi.

In the mystical theories of the Orphics and the Platonists, Kore is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature who both produces and destroys everything and she is therefore mentioned along or identified with other mystic divinities such as Isis, Rhea, Ge, Hestia, Pandora, Artemis, and Hecate. The mystic Persephone is further said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysos, Iacchus, or Zagreus.

Demeter and Persephone were often referred to as "the two goddesses" or "the mistresses". Cult of Demeter and the Maiden is found at:

• Attica:
  • Athens: in the Thesmophoria. This was a festival of secret women-only rituals connected with marriage customs and commemorated the third of the year when Kore was abducted and Demeter abstained from her role as goddess of harvest and growth. The festival was celebrated in three days:The first was the "way up" to the sacred space, the second the day of festing when they ate pomegranate seeds and the third was a meat fest in celebration of "Kalligeneia" a goddess of beautiful birth. Zeus penetrated the festival as Zeus-Eubuleus.
  • Eleusis: in the Eleusinian mysteries which were celebrated at the autumn sowing. Inscriptions are referring to "the two Goddesses" accompanied by the agricultural god Triptolemus probably son of Ge and Oceanus and "the God and the Goddess" (Persephone and Ploutos) accompanied by Eubuleus who probably led the way back from the underworld. The myth was represented in a cycle with three phases: the "descent", the "search", and the "ascent", with contrasted emotions from sorrow to joy which roused the mystae to exultation. The main theme was the ascent of Persephone and the reunion with her mother Demeter.

• Boeotia:
  • Thebes, which Zeus is said to have been given to her as an acknowledgement for a favour she had bestown to him. Pausanias records a grove of Cabeirian Demeter and the Maid, three miles outside the gates of Thebes, where a ritual was performed, so called on the grounds that Demeter gave it to the Cabeiri, who established it at Thebes. The Thebans told Pausanias that some inhabitants of Naupactus had performed the same rituals there, and had met with divine vengeance.
• Peloponnesus:
  • Temples consecrated to Demeter or to the Maid are found at Corinth, Megara, Mantinea, and Sparta.

• Sicily
  • Syracuse: There was a harvest festival of Demeter and Persephone at Syracuse when the grain was ripe (about May).

• Magna Graecia
  • Epizephyrian Locri: A temple associated with childbirth; its treasure was looted by Pyrrhus.
  • Archaeological finds suggest that worship of Demeter and Persephone was widespread in Sicily and Greek Italy.

Ancient literary references

• Homer:
  • Iliad:
    • "the gods fulfilled his curse, even Zeus of the nether world and dread Persephone." (9, line 457; A. T. Murray, trans)
    • "Althea prayed instantly to the gods, being grieved for her brother's slaying; and furthermore instantly beat with her hands upon the all-nurturing earth, calling upon Hades and dread Persephone" (9, 569)
  • Odyssey:
    • "And come to the house of Hades and dread Persephoneia to seek sooth saying of the spirit of Theban Teiresias. To him even in death Persephoneia has granted reason that ..." (book 10, card 473)
• Hymns to Demeter
  • Hymn 2:
    • "Mistress Demeter goddess of heaven, which God or mortal man has rapt away Persephone and pierced with sorrow your dear heart?(hymn 2, card 40)
  • Hymn 13:
    • "I start to sing for Demeter the lovely-faced goddess, for her and her daughter the most beautiful Persephoneia. Hail goddess keep this city safe!" (hymn 13, card 1)
• Pindar
  • Olympian:
    • "Now go Echo, to the dark-walled home of Phersephona."(book O, poem 14)
  • Isthmean:
    • "Aecus showed them the way to the house of Phersephona and nymphs, one of them carrying a ball."(book 1, poem 8)
  • Nemean:
    • "Island which Zeus, the lord of Olympus gave to Phersephona;he nodded descent with his flowers hair."(book N, poem 1)
  • Pythian:
    • "You spendlor-loving city, most beautiful on earth, home of Phersephona. You who inhabit the hill of well-built dwellings."(book P, poem 12)
• Aeschylus
  • Libation bearers:
    • Electra:"O Phersephassa, grant us indeed a glorious victory!"(card 479)
• Aristophanes
  • Thesmophoriazusae:
    • Mnesilochos:"Thou Mistress Demeter, the most valuable friend and thou Pherephatta, grant that I may be able to offer you!" (card 266)
• Euripides
  • Alcestis:
    • "O' you brave and best hail, sitting as attendand Beside's Hades bride Phersephone!"(card 741)
  • Hecuba:
    • "It is said that any of the dead that stand beside Phersephone, that the Danaids have left the plains to Troy."(card 130)
• Bacchylides
  • Epinicians:
    • "Flashing thunderbolt went down to the halls of slender-ankled Phersephona to bring up into the light of Hades." (book Ep. poem 5)
• Vergil
  • The Aeneid:
    • "For since she had not died through fate, or by a well-earned death, but wretchedly, before her time, inflamed with sudden madness, Proserpine had not yet taken a lock of golden hair from her head, or condemned her soul to Stygian Orcus." (IV.696-99)

Modern reception

In 1934, Igor Stravinsky based his melodrama Perséphone on Persephone's story.

Persephone also appears many times in popular culture.

Main article: Persephone in popular culture

See also

• Anthesphoria, festival honoring Proserpina, and Persephone
• Potnia

References

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
• Burket, Walter, Greek Religion 1985
• Farnell, Lewis Richard, The Cults of the Greek States, Volume 3 (1906) (Chapters on: Demeter and Kore-Persephone; Cult-Monuments of Demeter-Kore; Ideal Types of Demeter-Kore).
• Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
• Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.
• Kerényi, Károly, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, 1960, in English 1967
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Perse'phone"
• Zuntz, Günther, Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia, 1973

External links

• Martin Nilsson. The Greek popular religion
• Adams John Paul. Mycenean divinities
• Theoi project:Persephone Goddess
• Theoi project:The Rape of Persephone
• The Princeton Encyclopedia of classical sites:Despoina
• Theoi project:Despoine
• Kore Photographs
• Flickr users' photos tagged with Persephone