The Story of Persephone

Just a few seeds never hurt anyone. Right?

Salutations, reader. This week, I thought we'd look at a myth we probably all know. The Story of Persephone is the ancient Greeks' way of explaining the seasons. If you want to brush up on the myth, click on the link. If not, continue reading and analyze it with me.

There's one thing I want to point out before we get too far into this. Zeus was Persephone's father. So, when Hades was asking Zeus' permission to marry Persephone, he was abiding by the rules at the time. (We don't need to dwell too much on how all of the gods were related.) What both Zeus and Hades failed to do was talk to Demeter, Persephone's mom. This was probably another cultural norm, but since Zeus didn't spend any time with his daughter (to be fair, he had far, far too many kids to spend time with all of them), that meant that neither Persephone nor Demeter knew about this betrothal. Does that mean it still happened? Either way, when Hades came to claim his bride, he was technically allowed to do so. But only technically. I'm not sure why he thought he could kidnap Persephone and Demeter would just let her go. Or why he thought being so secretive was a good idea in the first place.

Moving on. Demeter, overcome with grief, refused to do her godly duties and make things grow. Apparently, her neglect even made the rivers shrivel up. I understand that she was deeply upset about her daughter being kidnapped. That makes perfect sense. What worries me is that Demeter was willing to kill lots of people because she was upset by causing this famine. I don't really see her as this caring, nurturing god anymore. At least, not to humans. At the same time, she didn't have any other ways to show how upset she was. Simply telling Zeus that it wasn't okay to barter off her daughter to someone else didn't seem to do anything. He had no problem agreeing to the match and leaving Demeter (and Persephone) out of the loop. Demeter was stuck in a tricky position. She chose her daughter over the humans of the earth, but I'm not sure I can blame her for that.

We see that either Persephone got Stockholm syndrome, or Hades was actually a pretty great guy and she fell in love with him. However, this story explicitly tells us that Persephone was tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds. She didn't think it would matter and, of course, Hades wasn't going to tell her otherwise. Hades was trying to leverage the gods' rules to keep his wife in the underworld with him. However, he didn't count on being up against Demeter. He should have known how stubborn and forceful she was, since she's his sister. Sorry, I wasn't going to dwell on how they're all related. Anyway, I think it's a good thing they had quick-witted Hermes there to negotiate the deal, or Persephone could have ended up split in half. Demeter, never one to take back her claims, decided that when Persephone was in the underworld, she wouldn't let anything grow, and we know this time as autumn and winter. ...which leads me to my next question: is the Southern Hemisphere just opposite of what Demeter does, or is Persephone the goddess of autumn instead of spring in the Southern Hemisphere?

The moral of this story is: if you want to marry someone, talk it out with both of their parents. And that person. Alternatively, if you're going to kidnap someone and have them fall in love with you, be extra tricky so they don't get stolen back. Poor Persephone is basically a piece of treasure and not a god in this story.

Did you like that analysis? Have another point I missed? Would you like me to talk about a different story? Comment below!