Persephone (/pərˈsɛfəni/, Περσεφόνη)
She loved her power,
the Queen of the Dead,
to forever reign
in the fires of hell.
She wore her crown
like a beacon;
a beautiful queen,
plotting against her king.
They never wanted you
to know the hunger of Persephone,
how she starved for something
other than pomegranates. (x)
MYTHOLOGY MEME : ten goddesses → persephone
Persephone is the goddess of the underworld in Greek mythology. She is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, goddess of the harvest. Persephone was such a beautiful young woman that everyone loved her, even Hades wanted her for himself. One day, when she was collecting flowers on the plain of Enna, the earth suddenly opened and Hades rose up from the gap and abducted her. None but Zeus, and the all-seeing sun, Helios, had noticed it.Broken-hearted, Demeter wandered the earth, looking for her daughter until Helios revealed what had happened. Demeter was so angry that she withdrew herself in loneliness, and the earth ceased to be fertile. Knowing this could not continue much longer, Zeus sent Hermes down to Hades to make him release Persephone. Hades grudgingly agreed, but before she went back he gave Persephone a pomegranate (or the seeds of a pomegranate, according to some sources). When she later ate of it, it bound her to underworld forever and she had to stay there one-third of the year. The other months she stayed with her mother. When Persephone was in Hades, Demeter refused to let anything grow and winter began. This myth is a symbol of the budding and dying of nature. In the Eleusinian mysteries, this happening was celebrated in honor of Demeter and Persephone, who was known in this cult as Kore. (X)(X)
the magical ladies of 300 fox way + aesthetic
(GREEK MYTHOLOGY series):
Persephone was a beautiful Goddess Queen of the Underworld, wife of the god Hades. She was also the Goddess of Spring Growth, who was worshiped alongside her mother Demeter.
Once upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, she was abducted by Hades and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter despaired at her disappearance and searched for her throughout the world accompanied by the goddess Hecate bearing torches. When she learned that Zeus had conspired in her daughter’s abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned. Zeus consented, but because she had tasted the food of Hades (a handful of pomegranate seeds) she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth. (x)
T E E N A G E G I R L S + M Y T H O L O G Y: Persephone
She smells of flowers, like the first day of spring. Her lips are pink from the pomegranate juice that she sucks from a carton, sat barefoot on the grass outside as she skips class. Head held high, new students make the mistake of thinking she is harmless. They learn their lesson. Sharp objects lurk beneath folds of material, the red of her nail polish there to hide that of a similar colour. She fights, hard and dirty, argues, cries in a bathroom stall, breaks hearts and forgets she has one of her own.
The Women of 300 Fox Way: Young Maura, Persephone and Calla.
Mornings at 300 Fox Way were fearful, jumbled things. Elbows in sides and lines for the bathroom and people snapping over tea bags placed into cups that already had tea bags in them. There was school for Blue and work for some of the more productive (or less intuitive) aunts. Toast got burned, cereal went soggy, the refrigerator door hung open and expectant for minutes at a time. Keys jingled as car pools were hastily decided.
fox way (n.) /fäks∙wā/
1. residential street in Henrietta, Virginia; home to a variety of clairvoyant women fueled by mixed drinks rather than otherworldly insight, whose predictions are unspecific but undeniably true. 2. where Blue Sargent’s raven boys stop being everyone else. ✾
related terms: raven boys
WE CAN TALK IT SO GOOD, WE CAN MAKE IT SO DIVINE
the young & future women of 300 fox way
greek deities and their roman counterparts persephone // proserpina
persephone was the greek goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld. she was the daughter of zeus and the harvest goddess demeter. homer described her as the formidable, venerable majestic princess of the underworld, who carried into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead. persephone was abducted by hades, the god-king of the underworld. the myth of her abduction represented her function as the personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence, she was also associated with spring as well as the fertility of vegetation.
proserpina was an ancient roman goddess whose cult, myths and mysteries were based on those of the greek goddess persephone. the romans identified her with their native fertility goddess libera, daughter of the grain and agriculture goddess ceres and wife to liber. in 204 bc, a new “greek-style” cult to ceres and proserpina as “mother and maiden” was imported from southern italy and was installed in ceres’ temple in rome. the new cult and its priesthood were actively promoted by rome’s religious authorities as morally desirable for respectable roman women, and may have partly subsumed the temple’s older, native cult to ceres, liber and libera; but the new rites seems to have functioned alongside the old, rather than replaced them. her name was probably derived from proserpere (“to emerge, to creep forth”), with respect to the growing of grain.
