Persephone

In ancient Greek religion, Persephone (Ancient Greek: Περσεφόνη Persephónē, in Homer and Pamphos of Athens Περσεφόνεια Persephóneia) was one of the main chthonic goddesses, a daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and wife of Hades. She was first known simply as Koré (Κόρη Kórē), meaning 'the maiden or the daughter, as opposed to Demeter, 'the mother (ἡ Μήτηρ hē Mḗtēr). Goddess of the underworld (the Underworld), and grain, and nature, she is also associated with the return of vegetation during spring because each year she returns to Earth for six months but spends the remainder of the year in the underworld with Hades, as ritualized in the Eleusinian mysteries. Persephone is equated with Proserpine (Latin: Proserpina) in Roman mythology.

Go, gentle heart and mild, / Go to thy dark-robed mother, fair of mien, / Nor grieve beyond all grief ~ Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Classical literature

• ... Then Hermes, swift as wind,
  Passed under earth, hollow and dark and drear,
  Leaving the glad Olympian homes behind,
  And now within his palace hushed as Fear,
  Found Hades with Persephone reclin’d
  On the same couch. She for her mother dear
  Sate pining, while the goddess, far away,
  Schemed, the gods’ shameful wrong with wrong to pay.
  • Hermes visits Hades. Homeric Hymns, II

• ... “Go, gentle heart and mild,
  “Go to thy dark-robed mother, fair of mien,
  “Nor grieve beyond all grief. For say, dear child,
  “What fault in me, thy deathless spouse, is seen,
  “Peer of the Powers whose home is in the sky,
  “Brother of Zeus, the eternal sire, am I!
  “There shalt thou come, and mid the shadowy throng,
  “Thy sceptre sway o’er all that live and move,
  “Sharing the rites and honours that belong
  “To the immortal gods enthroned above,
  “And all who injure thee, or do thee wrong,
  “Shall thro’ long years the avenging Power reprove,—
  “Yea, all who bring no gifts to grace thy shrine,
  “Nor soothe with hallowed forms thy Might divine.”
  • Hades, to Persephone. Homeric Hymns, II

• When like a Mänad on a mountain shady,
  The mother sprang to clasp her child again,
  Crying: “My child, my blossom, fair as May-day,
  “If foodless yet those lovely lips remain,
  “Honoured by all the Immortals thou shalt be,
  “Throned with thy sire of clouds and throned with me.
  “Or else to dwell in the grey earth’s recesses,
  “The year’s dark wintry third must be thy doom,
  “The rest shall leave thee to my glad caresses,
  “With light and deity for grief and gloom;
  “For when the vernal earth her green lap dresses,
  “With odorous buds and flowers of various bloom,
  “Forth from the darkness dense as stormy skies
  “Wonder of Gods and men shalt thou arise.
  “But tell me by what unimagined wile
  “The world’s dread Host beguiled thee.” “Mother dear,”
  Answered Persephone with lovely smile,
  “Hear thou the simple truth. When from the sphere
  “Where dwell the Gods in their high domicile,
  “Came herald Hermes, out of darkness drear
  “To bring thy child, that thou beholding me
  “Might calm thy wrath with Heaven and peaceful be,
  “Up with delight I sprang, but (undescried)
  “A sweet pomegranate seed, as honey pleasant
  “King Hades threw me, and for all my pride
  “I ate, compelled to take that fatal present;
  “But how he bore me a reluctant bride
  “Beneath the cavern’d earth and moon’s pale crescent,
  “Aided by subtle art of my great sire,
  “Will I, dear mother, tell at thy desire.”
  • Mother and daughter reunited. Homeric Hymns, II

• “We culled the lovely flowers with bell and chalice,
  “That painted all the meadows with delight,
  “Crocus or hyacinth or the tall agallis,
  “Rosebuds and lilies, wondrous to the sight,
  “While like some rarer crocus the green earth
  “Yielded Narcissus gladly to the birth.
  “In joy I gathered, till the earth beneath
  “Yawned, and behold! before my wondering eyes,
  “Forth leapt the valiant king, the lord of death,
  “And seized, and thro’ the gloomy cavities,
  “In golden chariot bore me; my forced breath
  “Still went and came, as rending air with cries
  “I left the light. ....”
  • Persephone recounts her abduction. Homeric Hymns, II
  • Wathen Mark Wilks Call, Golden Histories, &c. (1871)

• In Earth’s name, for the dark Persephone,
  Grant me one favour, slight, but sweet to me!
  • Leonidas of Tarentum, Anthologia Graeca, VII, 657
  • Walter Headlam, transl., A Book of Greek Verse (1907), p. 193

• Where Alcis keeps her state, shrill grasshopper,
    no more shall sun invest thy tiny glee.
  Now only Pluto hears thy music stir
    the dew-rich flowers of gold Persephonê.
  • Aristodicus of Rhodes, Anthologia Graeca, VII, 189
  • Humbert Woolfe, transl., "A Dead Locust"
  • The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation (1938)

• I saw your daughter Proserpine with these same eyes. She was
  Not merrie, neyther rid of feare as seemèd by hir cheere.
  But yet a Queene, but yet of great God Dis the stately Feere:
  But yet of that same droupie Realme the chiefe and sovereigne Peere.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, V
  • Arthur Golding, transl., The. XV. Booke of P. Ouidius Naso (1567)

Post-Classical literature

• Wherefore attended with her maids,
  Through fogs, and mists, and damps she wades,
  To Proserpine the Queen of Shades, ...
  • Michael Drayton, Nymphidia, The Court of Fairy (1627)

• Harke, al you ladies that do sleep;
    The fayry queen Proserpina
  Bids you awake and pitie them that weep.
    You may doe in the darke
      What the day doth forbid;
    Feare not the dogs that barke,
      Night will have all hid.
  But if you let your lovers mone,
    The Fairie Queene Proserpina
  Will send abroad her Fairies ev’ry one,
    That shall pinch blacke and blew
      Your white hands and faire armes
    That did not kindly rue
      Your Paramours harmes.
  In Myrtle Arbours on the downes
    The Fairie Queene Proserpina,
  This night by moone-shine leading merrie rounds
    Holds a watch with sweet love,
      Downe the dale, up the hill;
    No plaints or groanes may move
      Their holy vigill.
  All you that will hold watch with love,
    The Fairie Queene Proserpina
  Will make you fairer than Diones dove;
    Roses red, Lillies white,
      And the cleare damaske hue,
    Shall on your cheekes alight:
      Love will adorne you.
  All you that love or lov’d before,
    The Fairie Queene Proserpina
  Bids you encrease that loving humour more:
    They that have not fed
      On delight amorous,
    She vowes that they shall lead
      Apes in Avernus.
  • Thomas Campion, A Book of Ayres, I (1601), No. XIX

• No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
    Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
  Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
    By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; ...
  • John Keats, "Ode on Melancholy" (1820)

•   Ternissa! you are fled!
    I say not to the dead,
  But to the happy ones who rest below:
    For, surely, surely, where
    Your voice and graces are,
  Nothing of death can any feel or know.
    Girls who delight to dwell
    Where grows most asphodel,
  Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak:
    The mild Persephone
    Places you on her knee,
  And your cool palm smoothes down stern Pluto’s cheek.
  • Walter Savage Landor, "Ternissa"

• I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
  Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
  Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
  For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Hymn to Proserpine"

See also

• Anthesphoria, festival honoring Proserpina, and Persephone
• Eleusinian Mysteries
• Demeter
• Despoina
• Rape of Persephone
• Sporus