19 Hence Plutarch identifies her with spring, and Cicero 20 calls her the seed of the fruits of the field. The story according to which Persephone spent one part of the year in the lower world, and another with the gods above, made her, even with the ancients, the symbol of vegetation which shoots forth in spring, and the power of which withdraws into the earth at other seasons of the year. Later accounts place the rape in Attica, near Athens 16 or at Erineos near Eleusis, 17 or in the neighborhood of Lerna. 14 The Cretans thought that their own island had been the scene of the rape, 15 and the Eleusinians mentioned the Nysaean plain in Boeotia, and said that Persephone had descended with Hades into the lower world at the entrance of the western Oceanus. The Sicilians, among whom her worship was probably introduced by the Corinthian and Megarian colonists, believed that Hades found her in the meadows near Enna, and that the well Cyane arose on the spot where he descended with her into the lower world. The place where Persephone was said to have been carried off, is different in the various local traditions. Hades indeed complied with the request, but first gave her a kernel of a pomegranate to eat, whereby she became doomed to the lower world, and an agreement was made that Persephone should spend one third (later writers say one half) of every year in the underworld with Hades, and the remaining two thirds with the gods above. Her anger at the abduction obliged Zeus to request Hades to send Persephone (or Kore, i.e. 12ĭemeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, searched for her all over the earth with torches, until at length she discovered the place of her abode. 11 Hades accordingly carried her off while she was gathering flowers with Artemis and Athena. 10 Zeus, it is said, advised Hades, who was in love with the beautiful Persephone, to carry her off, as her mother, Demeter, was not likely to allow her daughter to go down to the underworld. The story of her being carried off by Hades, against her will, is not mentioned by Homer, who simply describes her as his wife and queen and her abduction is first mentioned by Hesiod. 8 Groves sacred to her are said by Homer to be in the western extremity of the earth, on the frontiers of the lower world, which is itself called the house of Persephone. 6 Hence she is called by later writers Juno Inferna, Averna, and Stygia, 7 and the Erinyes are said to have been daughters of her by Pluto. 5 Homer describes her as the wife of Hades, and the formidable, venerable, and majestic queen of the Shades, who exercises her power, and carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead, along with her husband. The Latin Proserpina, which is probably only a corruption of the Greek, was erroneously derived by the Romans from proserpere, "to shoot forth." 3īeing the infernal goddess of death, she is also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx 4 in Arcadia she was worshiped under the name of Despoena and was called a daughter of Poseidon Hippius and Demeter, and said to have been brought up by the Titan Anytus. But besides these forms of the name, we also find Persephassa, Phersephassa, Persephatta, Phersephatta, Pherrephassa, Pherephatta, and Phersephoneia, for which various etymologies have been proposed. 1 Her name is commonly derived from φερειν φόνον ( pherein phonon), "to bring" or "cause death," and the form Persephone occurs first in Hesiod, 2 the Homeric form being Persephoneia. In Latin Proserpina, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter.
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