Demeter and Zeus had a daughter named Persephone.With two powerful gods as parents, it is not surprising thatthe little girl grew up to be a beautiful maiden. Her motherloved the child more than anything else in the world andcringed at the idea of ever being apart from her.After she had grown up and become a young woman,Persephone’s beauty caught the eye of Hades, the ruler ofthe Underworld. Hades fell in love at the very first sight ofher. He knew he wanted to marry no one else. Overcomewith love, Hades went to Zeus, his brother andPersephone’s father. He said, “Brother, I am in love withyour daughter, Persephone. Let me have your consent tomarry her. I will make her the queen of my kingdom in theUnderworld.”Zeus thought that Hades would be a good husband forPersephone. Hades was a fair and powerful god. However,Zeus also knew that Demeter would never allow herdaughter to marry Hades and go to live far away in theUnderworld. If the maiden were to marry Hades, themother and daughter would be separated indefinitely.Zeus also knew that Demeter, the goddess of growth andfertility, would never wish her daughter to live in the stark, bleak world of the dead where nothing ever grew.Although he was king of the gods, Zeus was wary ofDemeter’s powerful influence over all the things thatblossomed on earth. He did not want to upset her.Zeus pondered his dilemma for quite some time. Hewanted to please his brother and allow the marriage, buthe did not wish to cause a conflict with Demeter. Finally,Zeus found a clever way to grant his brother’s requestwithout actually saying so. Carefully wording his response,Zeus said, “Brother, I cannot approve of a marriagebetween you and Persephone.”Zeus was telling Hades that although he could notofficially approve the marriage, he was not forbidding it either. Hades understood Zeus’s intention. He realized thatZeus was encouraging him to mary Persephone withouther parents’ blessing. Hades felt certain that if he acted inthis prescribed manner, Zeus would not be angry with him.He understood that Zeus was just trying to keep the peaceby officially saying neither yes nor no to the marriageproposal. Satisfied, Hades returned to the Underworld toplan the details of exactly how he would go aboutkidnapping Persephone.One day, soon after Hades’s meeting with Zeus,Persephone went to pick wildflowers with her friends nearthe town of Eleusis. No one expected trouble in thepeaceful meadow, and the girls were looking forward to an amusing and relaxing day. After a little while,Persephone wandered away from her friends, pickingflowers here and there and adding them to her basket.In a small wooded glen near the meadow, out of sightand earshot of her friends, Persephone spotted a beautifulnarcissus that she thought would make a lovely addition tothe bouquet she was making for her mother. Dreamily,Persephone knelt to pick the flower. She was surprised tofind that its roots were so deep that she could not wrenchit out of the ground. Suddenly, as she tugged mightily onthe flower, a huge hole opened up in the middle of theglen. The god of the Underworld raced out of the chasm,the roaring noise of his chariot filling the air. Quickly, Hadesgrasped the frightened maiden by the wrist and pulled herup beside him onto his chariot. Racing off to theUnderworld, Persephone cried out in fear to her motherand her friends.Up on Mount Olympus, Demeter heard her daughter’sterror-filled cries. She hurried to the area where the girlshad been playing. Persephone’s friends had beenfrightened when their friend failed to return, but no onecould tell where she had gone. Distraught, Demeterroamed the earth for nine days and nine nights, searchingin vain for her beloved daughter.On the tenth day, Demeter met Hecate, a goddess wholived in a cave near the spot where Persephone and herfriends had been playing. Hecate had indeed heardPersephone’s cries for help, but alas, she had not seenwhat had happened to the girl. Though she could offer nonew information about Persephone’s disappearance,Hecate offered to help Demeter look for her daughter.Together, the two goddesses set out on their search.The next morning, the goddesses came upon Helius,the god of the sun. Helius could see everything from his lofty perch in the sky, so Demeter begged him forinformation about her daughter’s disappearance. Heliuspitied Demeter and promised to tell her everything heknew. He confessed that he had seen Hades kidnapPersephone, and that the girl had cried uncontrollablywhen she was made Hades’s bride. Helius was sorry forDemeter’s loss, but he hurried to point out that as ruler ofthe Underworld, Hades exerted power over a third of theworld. He tried to console Demeter by saying, “I know youare sad to be separated from your daughter, but thepowerful Hades is a good match for the fair Persephone.”However, Demeter would not be consoled. She cried,“My beautiful daughter? Why should she be taken so faraway among the sunless dead?” Thinking about herdaughter’s situation all over again, Demeter became soupset that she left Hecate and Helius and began to shunher fellow immortals.Soon Demeter took to wandering the earth in the guiseof a mortal woman. She allowed the grain harvest to failand the fields to become parched. She was so transformedby her grief that no one could recognize her. She lookedlike a gnarled, old woman, as sad and weak as theparched and unyielding fields that were beginning to patchthe earth.After wandering for many months, Demeter cameagain to the town of Eleusis where she stopped to rest bya well. While she was sitting in the shade of an olive tree,four beautiful princesses came to draw water. They werethe daughters of Celeus, the king of Eleusis, and all fourwere kind and well-mannered. When they saw Demeter,they pitied her because she looked so sad and weary. Theyhad no idea that she was really a goddess. Trying to helpthe old woman, the girls asked if she would be interested in being a nurse to their baby brother, Demophoon.Demeter gladly accepted this offer.When Demeter entered the palace, her golden hairhad turn to gray, her skin was wrinkled and loose, and allher inner radiance was hidden beneath a dark robe.Nevertheless, the princesses’ mother, Queen Metanira,sensed that the new nurse was not an ordinary oldwoman. The queen noticed a special glow about thenewcomer, despite her dark robe and sad face. Metaniraoffered Demeter her best chair and asked one of theservants to bring some sweet wine, but Demeter, too sadto accept comfort, refused the chair and the wine. Instead,she sat on a low stool and drank only water mixed withbarley mead. Then Demeter asked to see the child forwhom she would be caring. When Demeter first took thebaby Demophoon in her arms, he smiled and gurgled.Queen Metanira was glad to see that her newborn son wascomfortable in the arms of his new nurse.Demeter was happy watching over the young prince.She began to love the child so much that, eventually, shedecided to make him immortal. By doing so, Demeterhoped to thank the royal family for their kindness and, atthe same time, to relieve some of the sadness of losing herown child. So each night, after the family was asleep,Demeter lathered the boy with ambrosia, an ointment ofthe gods. When he was well oiled, she placed him in theheart of the hearth’s fire to burn away all traces of hismortality. Though the baby was in the fire, Demeterwatched him intently, and the flames never hurt him.The ambrosia treatment worked wonders, and thebaby grew stronger and healthier every day. The royalfamily was amazed at the baby’s rapid development.Demophoon was growing much faster than a normalchild. Soon, however, Queen Metanira became suspicious of her son’s remarkable growth. One night she did not goto bed. Instead, she hid, hoping to see what the nurse wasdoing each night to her youngest child. When Metanirapeeked into Demeter’s room, she was shocked at whatshe saw. There was the nurse, turning her baby in the firelike a pig on a spit!Metanira screamed at the sight. Interrupted at hermagic, the goddess angrily jerked the child from the fireand threw him to the ground where he began to cry—unhurt but frightened. Hearing his wife’s scream, KingCeleus came running into the room, just in time to see theold nurse transform herself into a towering, beautifulgoddess. As her form changed, a blaze of light burst forthand filled all the gloomy corners of the palace room.Though she was furious with Metanira for theinterruption, Demeter’s anger quickly turned to sadness.She decided not to punish the family for their reaction. Shehad, after all, loved the baby, and although he could neverbecome immortal without continuing the ambrosiatreatments, he could still be honored, since a goddess hadbeen his nurse.Demeter told the king and queen to have the people ofEleusis build a temple in her honor. While it was beingbuilt, she told the townspeople how to grow corn and howto perform special ceremonies at her temple. In this way,the town continued to appease and pay tribute to theinconsolable goddess, whose grief once again becamefocused on her lost daughter.When the temple at Eleusis was completed, Demeterwent to live there, far from Mount Olympus and the othergods and goddesses. Sadly, she sat silently in her temple foran entire year. While she sat, no crops grew, and the peoplebecame hungrier with every passing day. Soon it seemedlike every living thing on earth was in danger of starving. Zeus feared that Demeter’s mourning was becomingdestructive. He begged her to end the famine, but Demeterrepeatedly refused the request. She said she would nevergrant her life-giving power to the earth so long asPersephone remained so far away in the Underworld.Finally, Zeus realized that Hades would have to give up hisbride so that the world could be healed. With a heavyheart, Zeus sent Hermes, the official messenger of thegods, to the Underworld to deliver a message to Hades.When Hermes reached the Underworld, he foundHades and his bride sitting side by side on their thrones.Persephone looked miserable. She was weeping becauseshe missed her mother and the world above. When sheheard Hermes’s message from Zeus, she cried out in joy.Hades knew that he had no choice but to obey Zeus andlet Persephone go home to her mother. He begged his wifenot to think of him harshly. Hades said, “My beloved wife,remember that here you are the queen, the most powerfulwoman of all. As the queen of the Underworld, you evenhave power over the living, because you have control overwhat happens to people when they die. Because of this,you have the power to be merciful, which is the greatestgift of all. Do not think ill of me or this kingdom when youare far away from here.”Reluctantly, Hades prepared to let Persephone go, butbefore she left, he gave her four pomegranate seeds to eat.Hades knew, although his wife did not, that if she ateanything from the world of the dead, she would have toreturn to his kingdom someday.Having eaten the seeds, Persephone rode happily outof the Underworld with Hermes. When their chariot finallyreached Eleusis, Persephone joyfully embraced hermother. The mother and daughter laughed and cried, andtalked as they had before. Finally, Demeter asked her daughter if she had eaten anything during her stay in theUnderworld. Persephone replied, “Mother, what a strangequestion. All I ate was four pomegranate seeds. Whyshould that matter?”Demeter became so upset by this news that she tookher daughter directly to Zeus to discuss what could bedone. On the way to Mount Olympus, Demeter explainedto Persephone that because she had eaten food from theUnderworld—the seeds of the pomegranate—she wouldhave to return there. That rule was unbreakable.Zeus had witnessed the happiness of mother anddaughter when they were reunited, and now he could seethe unbearable sadness in their eyes at the thought ofhaving to part again. Nevertheless, Zeus had to respect therules of the universe. Therefore, to follow the rules, theking of the gods decreed that Persephone must return tothe Underworld. However, Zeus offered a compromise:instead of returning permanently to live in the Underworld,Persephone need only live there for four months out of theyear, one month for each pomegranate seed she hadeaten. Appeased by Zeus’s compromise, Demeter allowedthe crops on earth to grow again.From that time on, mother and daughter spent twothirds of the year together. During their time together, theearth bloomed and the crops flourished. But whenPersephone returned each year to spend four months withHades in the Underworld, the earth became as cold as icewhile Demeter mourned for her daughter’s lost company.Then, every spring, when Persephone returned to hermother, the world would become green again incelebration of their joyous reunion.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: What was Demeter’s role as a goddess?
A: She was the goddess of agriculture. Demeter wasresponsible for providing healthy crops, fertility, andbountiful harvests.
Q: Who was Hades?
A: Hades was the god who ruled the Underworld, or theworld of the dead.
Q: Why did Zeus refuse to give his consent for Hades tomarry Persephone?
A: Zeus did not want to anger Demeter, Persephone’smother and the goddess of agriculture, who couldcause the earth to become barren.
Q: Why did Hades kidnap Persephone?
A: He wanted to marry her. He knew that Demeter wouldnever allow her daughter to marry someone who livedin the Underworld. He also realized that although Zeuswould not grant his consent for Hades to marryPersephone, Zeus did not precisely forbid themarriage. Without her parents’ official consent, Hadesknew he had no choice but to kidnap Persephone.
Q: What did Persephone eat while in the Underworld?
A: She ate four pomegranate seeds.
Q: What is the significance of the four seeds?
A: The four seeds came from the Underworld. Once shehad eaten food from the Underworld, Persephonewould be bound to return there.
Q: What compromise did Zeus make for Demeter andPersephone, and why did he make it?
A: Instead of forcing Persephone to return permanently toHades and the Underworld, Zeus allowed Persephoneto spend two thirds of the year on earth with hermother. Persephone had to return to the Underworldfor four months out of every year, one month for eachseed she had eaten. Zeus allowed this compromisebecause he wanted to keep Demeter happy. He knewthat if she remained sad, the earth would dry up andbecome barren.
Q: How does the myth of Demeter and Persephone help toexplain the seasons?
A: Each year, when Persephone went to the Underworld,Demeter grew sad. She did not let anything grow onearth, and winter set in. Then, when Persephone leftthe Underworld to return to her mother, the earthbecame fertile again, and spring returned
