Persephone A4 Notebook
Persephone. Goddess of vegetation, especially grain, and the wife of Hades, with whom she rules the Underworld. 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. The myth of her abduction by Hades was frequently used to explain the cycle of the seasons. Persephone was gathering flowers when she was seized by Hades and taken to the underworld. Upon learning of the abduction, her mother Demeter, in her misery, became unconcerned with the harvest or the fruitfulness of the earth, and made it so nothing will ever grow. Zeus therefore intervened, commanding Hades to release Persephone to her mother. Because Persephone had eaten one pomegranate seed in the underworld, she could not be completely freed but had to remain one-third of the year with Hades, and spent the other two-thirds with her mother. 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 summer—after harvest, before their revival in the autumn rains, when they are plowed and sown.
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