When Pluto carried off Persephone with Zeus' connivance, Demeter wandered the earth with torches until she came to Eleusis in mortal guise — and when the Maid ate a pomegranate seed in the underworld, the goddess' grief withered the crops until a compromise split the year between mother and king of the dead.1
The Maid taken⚖
Apollodorus says Pluto seized Persephone secretly, with Zeus' help. Demeter learned from the Hermionians that the god of the dead had taken her, and in anger she quit Olympus. Ovid places the rape in Sicily: while Proserpina gathered flowers by Lake Pergus near Henna, Dis saw her, loved her, and plunged with his chariot through the pool of Cyane — and the nymph Arethusa, whose stream runs beneath the earth, later told Ceres where her daughter had gone. Pausanias records rival Greek localizations at Eleusis and Argos.2
Torches and Eleusis
Demeter roamed the whole earth by night and day with torches in search of the Maid. Coming in the likeness of a mortal woman to Eleusis, she was welcomed by Celeus and Metaneira; she nursed their infant Demophon in the fire to make him immortal, but Metaneira's cry broke the charm. For Triptolemus, eldest son of Metaneira, she fashioned a chariot of winged dragons and gave him wheat to sow over the inhabited world.3
The pomegranate seed⚖
When Zeus ordered Pluto to send the Maid up, Pluto gave her a seed of a pomegranate to eat so that she might not stay long with her mother. Not foreseeing the consequence, she swallowed it — and because Ascalaphus bore witness that she had eaten, Demeter laid a heavy rock on him in Hades. For that one seed she must spend a third of every year below with Pluto and the rest with the gods; Ovid and Hyginus also reckon half the revolving year with each parent.4
The turning seasons
While Persephone dwells in the house of Hades, Demeter's sorrow withholds growth from the earth; when the Maid returns to Olympus, the world blooms again. The compromise is the mythic root of sowing and harvest — agriculture bound to the rhythm of descent and return.5
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
The Rape of Proserpina
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1621–1622
Bernini's Borghese marble — Pluto seizing Proserpina for the underworld, the Hymn's abduction carved into yielding flesh.
The Return of Persephone
Frederic Leighton, 1891
Leighton's Leeds canvas — Hermes leading Persephone up to Demeter's arms, the annual reunion that brings spring back.
Proserpine
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874
Rossetti's Tate Proserpine holds the bitten pomegranate — the Hymn's binding fruit that splits the year between worlds.
Demeter Mourning for Persephone
Evelyn de Morgan, 1906
De Morgan's winter goddess among withered stalks — the mother's grief that barrened the earth until the Kore returned.
The Demeter of Knidos
Unknown, c. 350 BC
Seated marble from Knidos — the sorrowful mother of the mysteries, grief read into the grain-goddess' face.
In play
Homeric Hymn to Demeter
The Hymn still carries Demeter's search and Persephone's pomegranate — Eleusis, the seasons, and the mother's bargain with Hades.
Persephone
The Kore's abduction and return remain the agricultural year personified — winter below, spring above.