Fossum, "The Myth of the Eternal Rebirth," p. 309. a goddess being abducted and taken to the underworld, "Nestis Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon (KJV)", "The Rape of Persephone: A Greek Scenario of Women's Initiation", "Hades' Newest Bride: A Remarkable Epitaph", "Life, Death, and a Lokrian Goddess. Mythology Abduction by Hades. The goddess of nature and her companion survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the words "Mighty Potnia bore a great sun" were uttered. Homer, Odyssey 11.217; Hesiod, Theogony 912; Homeric Hymn 2; Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1; Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.37.9; Ovid, Fasti 4.575, Metamorphoses 5.501; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 5.562; etc. Persephone and Demeter were intimately connected with the Thesmophoria, a widely-spread Greek festival of secret women-only rituals. Kernyi, Kroly. [42] Every year in the Sicilian city of Syracuse, Persephone was honored with the sacrifices of smaller animals and the public drowning of bulls. All Rights Reserved. "Persephone." The cult of Persephone in the Greek religion was especially strong in Sicily and southern Italy, and besides the Eleusinian Mysteries at Eleusis there were sanctuaries to the goddess across the Greek world, most notably at Locri Epizephyrii, Mantinea, Megalopolis, and Sparta. Demeter, distraught, wandered the entire world in search of her daughter. Zeus therefore intervened, commanding Hades to release Persephone to her mother. [95] Demeter is united with her, the god Poseidon, and she bears him a daughter, the unnameable Despoina. Kapach, A. When Demeter at last located Persephone in the Underworld, she demanded that her daughter be returned. Evidence from both the Orphic Hymns and the Orphic Gold Leaves demonstrate that Persephone was one of the most important deities worshiped in Orphism. 2023. Sure enough, Helios was able to tell Demeter how Hades had abducted her daughter.[17]. [39], Many of the festivals of Persephone and Demeter were related to the myth of Persephones abduction. The Gods of the Greeks. London: Penguin, 1955. Persephone frequently appears in all forms of Greek art and literature. 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. [61] Zeus then mates with Persephone, who gives birth to Dionysus. The goddess rising symbolizes the springtime sprouting of shoots of grain from the earth. [48], The 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda introduces a goddess of a blessed afterlife assured to Orphic mystery initiates. [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. [22], In another story, Theseus agreed to help Pirithous abduct Persephone from the Underworld, but they were caught and held prisoner. "Hermes and the Anodos of Pherephata": Nilsson (1967) p. 509 taf. Persephone was conflated with Despoina, "the mistress", a chthonic divinity in West-Arcadia. 3. [38] The Thesmophoria was also celebrated in other parts of Greece, such as the region of Boeotia. Persephone had temples throughout the Greek world, many of them shared with Demeter. 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. Persephone. Mythopedia, March 09, 2023. https://mythopedia.com/topics/persephone. The so-called Persephone Krater, an Apulian red-figure volute-krater by the Circle of the Darius Painter (ca. Her attribute was poppy and pomegranate fruit, so she was also associated with spring, flowers, life, and vegetation before becoming queen of the underworld. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Curse tablets were engraved texts that called upon a god, usually a chthonian god associated with the Underworld (such as Hecate, Hermes, or Gaia), to punish or harm an enemy, who would generally be named in the text. [j] In the Anthesteria Dionysos is the "divine child". [39] Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, searched for her all over the earth with Hecate's torches. Alcaeus, frag. [138] Whereas Melino was conceived as the result of rape when Zeus disguised himself as Hades in order to mate with Persephone, the Eumenides' origin is unclear.[139]. [1] The name pais (the divine child) appears in the Mycenean inscriptions. Zuntz, Gnther. So I read A webtoon known as lore Olympus (I would suggest you would not read) and decided to research alittle on Hades and Persephone on the hymn to Demeter and Ovid's Metamorphoseus and in The hymn Persephone clearly doesn't love Hades but then There is the myth of Minthe by Strabo and Ovid again where Minthe is turned into a plant by Persephone because she was a concubine of Hades [32] However, it is possible that some of them were the names of original goddesses: As a vegetation goddess, she was called:[33][35], Demeter and her daughter Persephone were usually called:[35][36], Persephone's abduction by Hades[f] is mentioned briefly in Hesiod's Theogony,[38] and is told in considerable detail in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. [89], Persephone was worshipped along with her mother Demeter and in the same mysteries. In the religions of the Orphics and the Platonists, Kore is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature[19] who both produces and destroys everything, and she is therefore mentioned along with or identified as other such divinities including Isis, Rhea, Ge, Hestia, Pandora, Artemis, and Hecate. Hades and Persephone, one of the most well-known tales from Greek Mythology, is the Greek myth of the seasons. Hades, the son of Cronos, was the brother of Zeus (king of the gods in Greek myth) and Poseidon (god of the sea). Pinax (sculpted votive tablet) from the temple of Persephone in Epizephyrian Locris showing Persephone, holding a cock and grain, sitting beside her husband Hades.
