Persephone
Queen of the Underworld
per-SEF-uh-nee
Daughter of the harvest and queen of the dead, six pomegranate seeds bind her below for a third of every year.
The Story
She was gathering flowers when the ground opened and Hades took her. Her mother's search stopped the harvest outright, and the terms Olympus finally struck depended on a technicality: she had eaten in the underworld, six pomegranate seeds, and anyone who eats there belongs there in part.
So she splits the year, and the earth splits with her. What is easy to miss is the second half of the story, below, she is not a captive but a sovereign, and in the myths where mortals come asking for the dead back, it is often Persephone who decides.
Did You Know?
- She is usually called Kore, simply the girl, when she is above ground, and Persephone below. The two names are almost two beings.
- Her name has no accepted Greek etymology and appears in a dozen spellings across dialects, a sign the word came from somewhere else.
- Lead curse tablets addressed to her have been dug up all over the Greek world, folded, pierced with nails, and dropped into graves. She was the one you took your grievances to.