One sunny day, Persephone and her friends went to pick flowers in the meadow. Her mother, Demeter, the Goddess of Grain and Growth, and her father, Zeus, King of the Gods, watched her with love and admiration. As she began to pick flowers, she glimpsed a beautiful narcissus flower. When she plucked it the flower, the ground began to quake and tremble. From beneath the earth, Hades, King of the Underworld and brother of Zeus, emerged on a fiery chariot. Before Persephone could scream for help, she was seized by Hades, put in the chariot, and taken back to the Underworld.
In the Underworld, Hades informed Persephone that her father Zeus had helped him plan her kidnapping, and that she was to become his wife and the Queen of the Underworld. As Persephone pined away for her mother, Demeter too grieved with sorrow over her daughter’s absence, and began to neglect her duties of caring for the crops. Consequently, the people of the Physical World began to starve, and appealed to Demeter for help. Demeter, who was beginning to gain knowledge of Zeus’ plot with Hades, was spurred into a rage over the disappearance of her daughter, and went to Zeus to demand Persephone’s return. Zeus gave in and sent his messenger Hermes to the Underworld to seek Persephone.
What Hermes found in the Underworld surprised him; rather than finding a sad and forlorn Persephone, Hermes discovered that Persephone had embraced her role as Queen of the Underworld and had become a strong and striking beauty. As Hermes demanded Persephone return to her mother with him, Hades pulled her aside. To comfort her, he fed her seeds from a pomegranate and told her he would miss her, but that she should also fulfill her duties to her mother.
When Persephone returned to the Physical World to greet her mother, they were overjoyed—but soon, Demeter began to see that Persephone had changed, and things would never be as they once were. Soon, they were reminded of a declaration Zeus had made long ago: that, in order for her to stay in the Physical World, Persephone would have to remain pure and unchanged, and that since she had tasted the seeds of the pomegranate, she had tasted the fruit of life and could not remain with her mother. Sensing Demeter’s grief, Zeus proposed that Persephone remain in the Physical World for four months, one for each seed she had tasted. At the end of these four months, Persephone would return to her husband in the Underworld. During the months while Persephone was away, Demeter would grow sad and neglectful of nature, and this is why we experience the changing of the seasons from winter, spring, summer and fall.
