Who is Persephone?
She is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. As the wife of Hades, she is the dreaded queen of the world below. As a maiden while plucking flowers (near Enna in Sicily, according to the story common in later times), she was carried off into the lower world by Hades on his car, with the consent of her father. To appease her mother’s wrath, Zeus sent Hermes to bring her back; but, since she had eaten part of a pomegranate given to her by Hades (i.e. had already become his wife), she could only spend two-thirds of the year in the upper world with her mother. At the end of that time she always had to return to her husband, and rule as the dark goddess of death; whereas, while with her mother, she was regarded as the virgin daughter, and the helper of the goddess who presides over the fertility of the earth. Hence Persephone is emblematic of vegetable life that comes and goes with the changing seasons. In spring, when the seeds sprout up from the ground, she rises to her mother; when the harves
