#and thus i invoke ╲ proserpine › about.

[presefone]

*takes a deep breath* ok so i want to talk about my personal criticism regarding the myth of persephone in common media etc because this has been told so many times across enternainement that i feel like some of its meaning has been lost through time. i'm a huge history enthusiast so this plays a role, definitely, and i'm not saying anything else besides what i'm writing here is wrong ; these are just my thoughts on it. basically, hades and persephone are not the protagonists of the story and they never were. it was always demeter. homer called it 'the hym of demeter' and praises her love for her daughter instead of anything else. there's truly no discussion about 'hades and persephone's love'. hell, persephone doesn't even have a line in the hym ; we don't hear her thoughts at all, which of course opens to a very welcomed interpretation but alas, let's move on. zeus' offers his daughter to marriage without hers or her mother's consent and awareness. his daughter, who he never helped raise and nor was involved in any way. his daughter who was never truly his daughter in anything but conception, but was above everything else demeter's creation, her most treasured companion, her gift and sole happiness in a world of mortals and olympians. a young 'maiden', stolen by death, never to be seen again. all gods knew of zeus' allowance and where persephone had been sent to but couldn't tell demeter, at all, by orders of their king. yet one god took pity of demeter's pain, hekate. demeter, who roamed the earth crying for her baby, who was taken too soon, without warning, to the darkest place in myth ; death. and demeter, who raged like the mother earth herself to get her child back, who cried and screamed in pure agony : all of this is the central theme of the hym, not hades, not even persephone herself. this is a clear story about ancient greek lives where fathers would send off their daughters to marriage without questioning their wives, and where daughters died too young in the process. i say this because normally what we have is a very ''cool but brooding hades'' who is ''misjudged by everyone'' and a ''sunshine and flowers persephone who is the only one who makes him smile'' and against that we need a clear antagonist, so common perception has a demanding, cruel, controlling demeter. this is not accurate at all. demeter is not the villain and again, neither is hades ! but he isn't the victim here too ! did persephone go willingly? only two myths tell that, so, it isn't the wildly accepted version. in most, she was kidnapped, taken, or lurred. and after that, we don't hear what happened because unfortunately her view does not matter, nor hades', nor their possible bloom of love. it is not really her story nor hades'. i personally fufill that gap that yes, she did come to love hades, hence the eating of the seeds and the marriage bond (and after all, hades was hit by eros' out of aphrodite's demmand to avoid kore from becoming yet another virgin goddess, so again, outside forces). her position as queen became more and more tempting as she is a goddess and any god wants power and glory, a maiden to be rival to hera, and stand up to her mother as equals, and not just a tool to her existence. my persephone longs for that power, for that duty, for that respect, and i take into accord the other myths she comes by as the dreadful, just, allurring queen. i also complete in my head that it was always her destiny from the beggining to be a god of underworld, since her name itself is leading to a destroyer and not just spring. but it all comes down to the meaning of the hym, of demeter, of her being 'kore', being a girl, a young girl, stolen and taken too soon. dead too soon. like the many greek women who were sold off to marriage never to be seen again ; dying in more ways than one.

[persephat]

tag drop - let's gooooooo

[presefone]

persephone's relationship with demeter is so fascinating. her existence is just an extension of demeter, at first, and their bond is a never ending cycle of life. demeter birthed kore and the personification of spring came forth, but her absence leads to cold and drought to not just her mother's heart but to the whole world : it is a deep connection between the child x the creator and so much more ( ... ) i'll write kore as a defiant force against her mother but doing so in a respectful, wishful, and even adoring way ; questioning her place as only a secondary piece to an olympian instead of her own diety that deserves praise and fear as any other. a being refusing to go against what the fates have written, but wondering if she's meant to be just maiden of spring ( sometime i'll write how that defiance applies to hades as well and how far were her choices considered but i believe it is much more complex considering how the hades and persephone thing is seen, usually, and how many myths and tellings are of that story. i like the homer route and the goose tale, too, that little know of. anyway ). wondering if demeter is correct in keeping her just that, her daughter, and little else. the sensation of being held back. and later on, above all, fighting for power against demeter, as i believe gods of any size are in a constant battle for glory and power despite love and adoration for each other. i believe wholeheartedly that the mother x daughter relantionship is a fascinating aspect of our lives and usually the most definining one be it healthy of not. the same applies here. she's much more devoting to her duties to demeter once she has her own steady foot equal to hera and amphitrite's, loving her as spring does the earth and all its living creatures, but demanding equal respect and consideration despite demeter being her creator.

[presefone]

LONG META , persephone's duties x persona, the goddess of elysium and reincarnation , the destroyer & the dreadful :

i just want to say that i do have a gripe with the common description of persephone being an only kind-hearted goddess full of life and usually described as 'the sunshine', 'the cinnamon roll''. i do believe her existence as mere 'kore' was definitely simpler, and that she mostly spent her time with the nimphs, satyrs and mortals, that she was a youthful being and less strict, wanting more in her natural need for fertility and grandness, lover of nature and life-bringer - but as the persephone the hyms describe her, the force behind the name and its meaning, while sympathetic to mortals and heroes and definitely benevolent on cases, was a very dangerous goddess the mortals mostly feared. she ruled not just the underworld, but the season that brought mortals, essentialy, life back. and if she was unpleased, then they would be too ; after her cult became strong in ancient greece, you have depictions of them fearing to say her name out loud, and vowing to kore spokenly instead - the hyms essentially placing her as a guiding force of death, not just life. she was also very ruthless to those two kept duties from being done, and was essentially described as awful and dreadful. she was written as terrible many times before;

Hesiod, Theogony 767 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) : "There, in front [of the ends of the earth], stand the echoing halls of the god of the lower-world, strong Haides, and of awful Persephone. A fearful hound [Kerberos (Cerberus)] guards the house in front . . . keeps watch and devours whomsoever he catches going out of the gates of strong Haides and awful Persephone."

Ovid, Heroides 21. 45 ff (trans. Showerman) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "[A maiden laments the death of her lover :] Ah me, at the very time of marriage cruel Persephone knocks at my door before her day!" [N.B. Here Persephone is the personification of death.]

Orphic Hymn 57 to Chthonian Hermes (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) : "[Hermes] who constant wanderest through the sacred seats where Haides' dread empress, Persephone, retreats; to wretched souls the leader of the way, when fate decrees, to regions void of day . . . for Persephone, through Tartaros dark and wide, gave thee for ever flowing souls to guide.

she's hardened, she's dutiful and feared for it. and while we do have many other tales of her being written as benelovent and the wise next to haides, i like to think she is both. all the time. she's nurturing because she brings forth life, but she's feared because she is one of the guides of death, she forbrings the thawn of ice but also, she is all of it within the concept of rotting and fading away and waiting for your final judgement, both raw and cruel as well as the one giving a second chance and an offer for rebirth:

Theognis, Fragment 1. 703 ff (trans. Gerber, Vol. Greek Elegiac) (Greek elegy C6th B.C.) : "Persephone who impairs the mind of mortals and brings them forgetfulness. No one else has ever contrived this, once death's dark cloud has enveloped him and he has come to the shadowy place of the dead and passed the black gates which hold back the souls of the dead, for all their protestations."

Pindar, Dirges Fragment 133 (trans. Sandys) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.) : "But, as for those from whom Persephone shall exact the penalty of their pristine woe, in the ninth year she once more restoreth their souls to the upper sun-light; and from these come into being august monarchs, and men who are swift in strength and supreme in wisdom; and, for all future time, men call them sainted heroes." [N.B. Pindar appears to be saying that the soul is judged in Hades and, if found guiltless, passes on to the realm of Elysium. It must, however, return to earth twice more and suffer two more deaths. Then, finally, Persephone releases it from the cycle--it returns to earth once more to live life as a righteous king, hero or sage, before being sent to the paradisial Islands of the Blest.]

Statius, Silvae 5. 1. 253 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman poetry C1st A.D.) : "Whenever a shade approaches that has won the praise of a loving spouse, Proserpine [Persephone] bids summon joyful torches, and the heroines of old come forth from hallowed bowers and scatter the shades of gloom in radiant light, and strew garlands and Elysian flowers before her."

so there's this belief that persephone breaks the cicle and created reincarnation, which makes sense considering spring can be life ( and represents it, with a very dark-known myth i won't get into right now ). perhaps the mortals mostly feared not being worthy of it, and that her judgement would be unforgiving. but yes, this is the route i'm taking. maybe my persephone will be perceived as cruel by your muse at times, but she's doing what she considers righteous ; she's still a representative of death, after all, and it is never pleasurable to face it.