(Quick note: When I posted a drawing of the king of the Underworld and his consort, I released that some commentors weren’t familiar with the story, so I decided I’d use that as an excuse to retell it. I realise this is quite long. If you’re more interested in the significance of Greek myths and this story in particular than in me playing at Ovid, go straight ahead onto the companion piece for this which should be published soon. If not, read on, or at least look at the pictures. I appologise for the length and what-have-you, I’m indulging myself more than usual since I’m currently taking finals at uni.)

When the universe was still very young and human beings were few, there was a civil war in the heavens; a terrific battle between the Titans and the new gods that is now known as the Titomachia.  For ten long years the rivers and the oceans ran red with the blood of immortals, until at last, exhausted, the new gods stood victorious on the slopes of Mount Olympus. In those days, there were only the six of them. The mighty and impulsive Zeus was the youngest of them, but strong and quick witted, armed with a quiver full of thunderbolts. The jealous and proud Hera was Zeus’ consort, ever enraged by her husband’s wandering hands.  Motherly Demeter was a creature of the open fields; a lover of nature. Wild Poseidon, with his tempestuous moods, raged storms down upon his enemies with his barbed trident. Kind Hestia was quiet and calm, she loved the warm flickering light of the fireside above all else. And then there was grim Hades, the eldest of the three brothers, who stalked the battlefields in a magic helmet, known as the Helm of Darkness, which rendered him all but invisible. The sisters chose duties that suited them without much comment, but the brothers argued, as brothers often do. They drew lots, eventually: Zeus got dominion over the sky and crowned himself head of the gods, Poseidon got the sea, and Hades the Underworld, the land of the dead.

Image by the author: a young Hades, Zeus and Poseidon, looking dishevelled after ten years of war.

It was a long road between the tall slopes of Olympus and the dank and mysterious caves that marked the entrance of the underworld, but Poseidon, who loved horses more than any other creature, gave chariots to each of his siblings, so their journeys could be short, passing across the skies like glittering shadows. As Hades’ chariot drew up on the banks of the river Styx for the first time, the jet hooves of the horses sinking into the mud, he started to wonder if his brothers had tricked him.

The sound of someone clearing his throat drew the god’s attention to a gaunt, elderly man in a ragged cloak, clasping a long pole in his bony fingers. This was Charon, the ferryman, who took the souls of the dead across the river to the Underworld itself. He did not speak, but beckoned Hades into the little boat. The Underworld has changed a little since Charon first ferried his new master under the shimmering stalactites. In the earliest years, there was only one huge chamber, the misty Asphodel Fields, where the shadows of mortals drift in the fog. It was a dark and sinister place, with thick fog rolling in continuously from the deep pool of Lethe, whose waters bring peaceful forgetfulness, and bordered by the three rivers of Coctys, Acheron and Phlegethon, which no one, mortal or immortal, could ever cross. There the shades of the dead wafted like smoke through the grey mists, nibbling at the Acheron plants, drinking in forgetfulness. But soon Zeus decided that the pit of Tartarus, where the Titans had been imprisoned, and the beautiful Elysian Fields should be added to Hades’ realm. Zeus had a plan: to reward pious and heroic by sending their souls to Elysium, and to punish wicked individuals by sending them to be tortured in Tartarus. The details, of course, he left to his brother, the great god Zeus was always more concerned with grand ideas than minute details. So to judge the dead souls, Hades chose three of the mortals’ wisest kings and installed them at the crossroads by the banks of the Styx. To rule in bright Elysium, he freed Cronus and Rhea, the King and Queen of the defeated Titans, parents of the gods. By the furthermost wall of Elysium, Hades had his home, a great palace of shimmering marble studded with gems, because the dark depths of the dead were not the only things under the world in Hades’ domain; every stone, every metal ore, every glittering crystal belongs to him too.  

There, behind glistening columns and inlaid friezes, the new god busied himself with the dead and the dying and with the messages and prayers and curses sent by the angry and the mourning and the jealous among mortals until he was no longer a new god at all. And in the evenings as the lamplight faded, he turned to the cold glittering stones, decking out his chariot in gold and jet, covering his pale fingers with rings, his pallid wrists with bracelets, his raven hair with diadems, so he could forget the dark and the cold and the loneliness.

Until one day, when Zeus called him to Mount Olympus. It was the first time since the Titomachia that Hades had ventured into the sunlight and the world looked very different now: buildings of wood and stone nestled in the valleys and on the hills, the fields were ploughed. New, young gods walked among the mortals, guiding their lives, their destinies and their passions. Hades’ golden chariot shot above them all with the four coal-black horses at the head and the god’s dark mantle billowing out behind him, like a pair of rain-clouds clawing around the gleaming sun. But there, below him, something caught at his eye and caught at his cold heart. On the slopes of the mountain, was his sister, Demeter, sewing seeds into the barren earth, but beside her, with an armful of flowers, was something far more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. A girl, a young goddess, with skin like coloured marble, eyes like sparkling emeralds, hair like obsidian, and a figure more perfect than any sculptor could ever carve. Most beautiful and alien of all was her smile, for smiles were few in the Underworld.

When Hades’ chariot clattered across the flagstones at the gates of Olympus, all he could think of was the girl. He didn’t want to see his brother, he didn’t want to discuss business, all he wanted was to follow the girl on the hillside. The buildings of Olympus swarmed with gods and demigods Hades had never seen before, but stories and gossip trickle down even into the Underworld, and he recognised armed Athena; unfaithful Aphrodite in the arms of her lover Ares; the huntress Artemis talking to her brother’s companions the Muses; even cheerful Dionysus, youngest of the gods. They watched curiously, as the pale chthonic god swept across the courtyard to Zeus’ palace.

Hera was leaning against loom in the cool shadows of the peristyle, a cup in one hand, a ball of thread in the other. She bowed her head courteously as he passed, watching him with puzzled eyes. She had not seen her brother since the Titomachia and much had changed on Olympus since then. She could see that he had changed too, the night-robed figure that drifted past her was not the same spry young lad who had stolen the weapons of the Titans with the help of the Helm of Darkness, but then, she was not the same young girl who had married Zeus. She marvelled at him, at the skin like fresh-cut marble, at the spark of light from a myriad gems, the spun gold at the edge of his cloak.

Hades bowed his head and bid her farewell before sweeping on through the gate into the courtyard of the palace. The building had changed considerably since he had last visited the mountain, but the sound of muffled laughter and the chink of glasses lead him to Zeus’ throne-room. The king of the gods was lounging on a couch at the side of the room, sipping languidly for a cup held by the slim young lad standing beside him. Zeus seemed different to how he had been when the two brothers had last met; a little older, more relaxed, laughter-lines deepening around his eyes. The body was still taught, though, strong and powerful like an athlete. He looked up as Hades entered, and his eyes brightened.

“You came! I was starting to think we’d never see you in daylight again! Ganymedes, stop standing there gawping; pour us both a drink and get out of the way, will you?” he pushed the boy toward Hades. “Come and sit down, then Hades. Or are you still calling yourself ‘Aidoneos’?”

Hades took a cup from Ganymedes as the boy passed, and sat down heavily on the couch. “You wanted to see me?”

Zeus laughed. “Business as always? You work too hard, Hades. Look at you; you look like death,” he paused and laughed again, “sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean it. How’re things going down there, anyway? Good?”

Hades shrugged as he sipped from the cup. “Busy,” he said at last, “busy but manageable.”

Zeus slapped him on the back cheerfully. “Good man. Actually that’s why I called you up here. You know we’ve been experimenting with the mortals?”

Hades shot a glance after Ganymedes and smirked. “I did notice.”

“Hah, no not him. Come on, even you must have noticed they’re not made of gold anymore,” Zeus continued, “well, we’ve tried silver, we’ve tried bronze, but we tried clay… you know, flesh, the other day and that seems to be working. Only trouble is, they’re a bit more like us…” He trailed off and glanced at Hades.

There was a pause.

“Oh no, Zeus, no!” Hades snapped, realising the implications and standing up sharply. “Like us but mortal? And made of flesh, of all things? We’ll be lucky if they survive the week, and then what I am supposed to do? Have the judges change their standards and throw them all into Tartarus? Asphodel isn’t infinite, you know.” He paced across the room, fingers curling into an angry fist. “How are we supposed to get through that many spirits, eh? Find more judges? More ferrymen? And what happens when you decide to start another war between them? No, I won’t have it, brother, I’ll sooner resign.”

Zeus reached out toward him. “Oh now come on, Hades, don’t be like that. What would I do if you gave it up, eh? I can’t exactly hand the whole damn Underworld over to some kid like Thanatos or Horkus can I? Hecate can’t do it either; she’s all caught up in crossroads these days.” He walked over to his brother and put an arm around him. “Tell you what: I’ll employ a few more psychopomps. They can keep an eye on the souls until they get up to the judges. I’ll set Hermes on it; he needs more jobs to keep him busy. Keep him out of the way. Don’t worry brother; I’ll see things keep working.”

Hades looked at him suspiciously. “You’ve already done it haven’t you? You’ve replaced all the old mortals with these clay ones.”

“Ah…. Yes.”

“Yes, you never did think to agree something before you acted on it, did you? Far too busy seducing any creature that comes into your path, eh little brother?”

“Hades!” the great god’s voice echoed through the palace, a roar like oncoming thunder. “Do not forget your place, dear brother. I’m the one that rules here, we all agreed to that. Be careful what you say. I’d hate to have to lock you away as we did with father. Now,” he continued in a more friendly tone, “since we’re on the matter of… love affairs, have you found yourself a queen yet? Don’t look at me like that, a man needs a wife, and a god even more so. Besides, you know the mortals are scared rigid of you, it’d help them to see you as a… a husband. It would do you some good too. Stop you fussing over those damn jewels all the time. Now come on, there must be someone… anyone…?”

Hades was about to argue, but then he remembered the vision on the hillside, that beautiful girl with the basket of flowers. Nervously, falteringly he told his brother of what he had seen and how, although he did not know her name or had not even heard her speak, he loved her. Zeus grinned and slapped an arm around him again.

“That’s the spirit! Demeter’s daughter?  I know the one you mean. They call her Kore. Good choice, good choice. I’ll have a word with her mother. I… I can’t promise you she’ll be keen on the idea, though,” he began to say, but then he saw his brother’s expression and added, “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

Zeus’ smile never faded as his brother thanked him and bid him goodbye, turning on his sandaled heels and drifting out of the palace like a shadow. But the great god’s smile withered once Hades had left. He knew that Demeter would not part with her pretty daughter. She had already refused Poseidon, god of the shimmering seas; she would certainly refuse to marry her daughter to the dismal deity of the darkest depths. But what could Zeus do? He didn’t dare anger his brother, but angering his sister would serve him no better. He leaned his head on his hand and sighed.

A few days passed, though down in the Underworld days are hard to tell from nights. Hades was bent across his desk, toiling over manuscripts and messages, prayers and prophecies, when the sound of footsteps surprisingly close to the desk, distracted him. He looked up into the wide smile of a young god in a traveller’s cloak and holding a long curved staff. Nestled on his black curls was a sun hat with fluttering wings, on his feet golden sandals again with wings attached, and every now and again, the wings would flicker excitedly lifting him off the ground.

Image by the author: Hermes, god of messengers, travel, commerce, thieves and liars, escort to the dead and anything else Zeus can do to keep him out of the way.

“Hello, Uncle Hades!” said the lad brightly.

Hades leaned against his hand and sighed. “Yes?”

“Hermes pompous psycho, at your service!” said Hermes and he laughed.

“The word is psychopompos.”

“I know that,” Hermes replied, perching on the edge of the desk like an inquisitive bird, “it was just a little joke. Dad said you didn’t have much of a sense of humour.”

“Your father would say that,” Hades said, “what do you want, Hermes, I’m very busy. If this is a social call…”

“I know, I know,” Hermes leaned back and adjusted his hat. “Dad, er, Zeus wants to see you. He said if you’re busy it’s not urgent, but he said he’s spoken to Demeter.”

Hades straightened up and stared at the boy for a moment. “He did? Ah, good. Excellent. Hermes, you’re a messenger, aren’t you? Go and tell Horkus or Thanatos or somebody to take over for a while, just don’t let anything escape. I’m going to Olympus.”

Hermes leapt off the table and followed Hades out of the room. “Oh okay. I thought you were really busy?”

Hades waved him aside. “Oh I’m never to busy to visit my dear brother,” he said, with a smirk.

Hermes watched him leave and shook his head. His family was so… fascinating. He considered ignoring his uncle’s instructions but decided that bothering gods less powerful than him would be more fun. In the meantime, Hades’ chariot sped across the skies once more, faster than shadows, faster than death, until its wheels rattled against the stones of the courtyard, hardly waiting for the horses to stop before scurrying away toward the palace. Zeus was sorting through papers when Hades found him. He glanced up with a worried expression.

“Ah, Hades, yes, good to see you again,” he muttered awkwardly, “couple of things… First of all, I noticed the mortals haven’t set up any temples to you. That’s not on. So, and I’m sure you won’t mind this, so I’ve organised for a temple to be built to you at Elis. Isn’t that marvellous? I’m thinking we’ll sort another one up north, you deserve it, you know…”

“Demeter said no, didn’t she?” Hades said flatly, all eagerness dying away.

Zeus leaned back in his chair and smiled weakly. “I can’t get a thing past you, can I? I… hinted. It’s not just you. She won’t let anyone near her. I’m… I’m sorry, Hades. If it were up to me alone, she’d be yours. We’ll just have to look for someone else, eh?”

Hades merely grunted an answer, eyes lowered, no longer listening. Zeus continued talking about temples and votives, about pretty girls and nymphs, but his voice seemed thin and distant, as though echoing through a cave. Eventually the talking stopped and Hades murmured a goodbye. He wandered slowly from the palace back to his chariot. Suddenly the thought of returning to the Underworld, returning to work seemed torturous and as he snatched up the reigns a rage ignited inside him. Whipping the horses into action with a furious strike, he drove away across the sky, away from Olympus, away from the Underworld, away across the sparse hills of Greece. Far below, mortals scuttled like rats in and out of their tiny wooden homes, busy with their tiny little lives and their tiny little deaths. Every single one would one day cross into Hades’ domain and he shuddered to think of them crowding the banks of the Styx and the fields of Asphodel. He was about to turn his gaze from the ground altogether, when a group of figures in a secluded meadow caught his eye. These were no mortals, they were nymphs. And among the nymphs, her long hair shimmering,, the saffron of her dress glowing like the sun itself, was the girl from the hillside, Kore.

The glint of a scheme sparked in Hades’ eyes. Zeus hadn’t exactly forbidden him from seeking her out. He hadn’t even told Demeter who exactly it was who desired her daughter. If Hades were to sweep down now and take the girl, who would know? The nymphs wouldn’t even know who he was. Yes, he would have her. By all that was fair, by all the power of the gods he would have her! With a shout that echoed across the valley, he whipped the horses into frenzy. Hurtling toward the ground at impossible speeds, eyes narrowed against the rushing air, crouching low in the chariot, his clothing clinging at his frame, the great and terrible god of the Underworld readied himself. As the nymphs threw themselves aside, their shrill cries tearing at his ears the girl stood firm, staring rigidly at the oncoming chariot as though bewitched. His arm seized around her waist. She screamed, she cursed, she struggled, her fingers tearing at his hands, her legs thrashing, her back arching and twisting. Hades urged the horses upwards again. Up over the valleys, over the hills, over the mortal houses and mortal farms, over the fields, then down, down into the caves that led to the Underworld. With the ground rising to swallow them up, she lashed out once more, a last desperate chance of escape, throwing off her mantel and shrieking out for help with every breath. As the last ray of natural light shrank from view and with exhaustion and horror beating down on her, Kore fainted.

(No illustrated version of this story would be complete without a “Rape of Persephone” scene, but I couldn’t possibly do justice to it, so here’s the scene as depicted on the wall of a tomb in Vergina, possibly belonging to one of Alexander the Great’s family. Image source

When she awoke, her captor and his golden chariot were nowhere to be seen. She was lying on a soft, silken couch in a dark room, lit only by a handful of small oil lamps, scattered across jewel-studded furniture. She sat up slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. Laid out on a table beside the couch were a cup of nectar and a bowl of ambrosia, the food of the gods, and next to them, piled atop a neatly folded silk stole, a bejewelled gold diadem. She picked it up and studied it for a moment, letting the dim light play across the surface of the gems. It seemed strange that her abductor should leave her with such lovely things. She perched cross-legged on the edge of the couch for a while, sipping at the nectar and wondering what she should do. When the nectar and ambrosia was gone, and the room was thoroughly inspected, she finally dragged up every dreg of courage and pushed open the door to slip outside. Pulling her new scarf around her shoulders she padded along corridors, peering through doorways into half-lit rooms and empty courtyards. The palace, for it could not be anything else, was huge, but every meandering corridor, every room, was cold and dark. All this furniture, all these pretty things, but no one around to use it! She tiptoed a little further and found a window opening out onto a garden, a garden even stranger than the palace itself. The air outside was heavy with mist which coiled around the tendrils of vines and gaunt, leafless trees.

She was searching for an entrance into this peculiar garden when she heard a dry sound echo through the corridor, a sound like someone stirring autumn leaves. She followed the sound to a wide, columned hall where a figure sat hunched over a stone table. So here he was then, her abductor. He didn’t seem quite so terrible now, this thin, pale figure. He was very tall with long, unruly black hair and dark clothes to match. The darkness of his drapes only emphasised his pallor, even the silver of his rings seemed darker than his skin. She had never seen a man who looked like that, let alone a god! She smiled slightly and crept forward along the colonnade. As she moved she watched the shadows change across his face. He was not unattractive, more… strange.

After watching him for a while, still pacing around the peristyle, she gathered together the courage to say, “It’s Hades, isn’t it?”

He looked up, startled. “I thought you were in your room,” he stammered.

 “I was, I came out,” she said with a grin, stepping out of the colonnade and creeping forward. “I know why you brought me here, you know, I’m not a fool. I’m a fertility goddess; mother told me all about it. But the question is,” she continued reaching the table and leaning across, “the question is, are you going to act like Poseidon and marry me, or are you going to act like Zeus and keep me around for a couple of nights then leave me to my own devices?”

Hades put his head on one side and stared at her for a moment. “You’re very bold.”

“And you’re very odd,” she returned, “but I seem to be stuck here and, well, you don’t seem so awful now you’re not bearing down on me out of the sky.” She flicked a few stray locks of hair behind her shoulders. “They call me Kore, by the way, ‘the maiden’, but I prefer Persephone.”

Hades smiled slightly.  “’She who brings destruction’? I like it. It’s a good name for an Underworld goddess.”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

“You haven’t much choice,” he said darkly.

“No?” She sprawled across the table and gazed up at him with mischievous eyes. She adjusted her dress and winked slyly. He feigned disinterest, toying with his papers but she caught his eye and the very slightest suggestion of a smile toyed with his lips. He told her he would give her anything she wanted, anything if she would consent to be his wife, but she was a creature of the open air. All she wanted was sunlight and flowers. Well, flowers he could give her, crystal flowers, the dull blooms of Asphodel, even the crops that grew in the garden sometimes had flowers, but sunlight could never reach the underworld. He told her she could spend every hour of the day in the garden should she wish, but she was never, ever to eat from the plants that grew there.

Image by the author: Persephone (because drawing stunningly beautiful people is obscenely hard. *sigh*)

Persephone nodded contentedly, pulling herself up to sit on the edge of the table. “I suppose that will have to do then,” she paused, leaning back to recline across the papers in front of him and then added, “My husband, what are you doing?”

Hades sighed. “Before you decided the desk was a couch, I was assigning punishments for the mortals,” he said, pulling a few sheets of parchment from underneath her. “Some of them… ah, look at this chap. This one, Tantalus, you know what he did? He killed his own son, chopped him into little bits and boiled him up. And you know what he did next? He fed him to the gods as a sacrifice. Some of these new mortals are disgusting.”

“That’s revolting!”

“That’s not all,” Hades interrupted, “your mother was the only one who accepted the sacrifice.”

Persephone scowled. “Ooh that bastard! I know! I know what to do. He likes playing with food? Well, you stand him in a pit with all sorts of wonderful food dangling above his head, always out of reach so he’s desperately hungry. Forever!”

“Very nice,” Hades grinned, an expression that hadn’t crossed his face in years, “how about we fill that pit with water that he can never drink, too?”

“Ingenious! He won’t… starve will he?”

“That’s the one good thing about the Underworld, my dear,” he replied, scribbling a signature across the paper, “they’re all already dead. They have no physical form, there is nothing I can do to hurt them. But they think that I can, and that’s what matters. You look out there, look at Sisyphus, pushing that rock up the hill all the time, it’s not the task itself that tortures him, it’s the frustration.”

“All right then, clever, what’s so psychological about the man tied to that burning wheel?” Persephone demanded, tapping the papers with a prying fingertip.

“Ah, I had run out of ideas,” he replied rather awkwardly.

Persephone snorted and started to giggle. Hades looked at her and smiled and slowly, nervously, he started to laugh too. Souls clustered around the gates of the palace. They hadn’t heard laughter since their deaths. The sound echoed through the Underworld until it reached the mouths of caves, strange and distorted. But as, down there in the depths, curiosity turned to admiration, and admiration to friendship and friendship to something which could almost be mistaken for love, the surface of the earth saw nothing but sorrow. Demeter had returned to the meadows to find her daughter gone, and where the nymphs could not tell her. “Taken” they said “taken by a god” but which god and where?

Angry and dejected, Demeter searched the world, ignoring her duties so that the earth grew barren. No rain fell, no crops grew and many mortals fell to the first famine their race had ever known. As she wandered, disguised as a human woman, she came to the town of Eleusis. The people there gave her what little food and drink they had, and in return she agreed to nurse the children of the king there for a while. Two sons he had, Demophon, an infant, and Triptolemos, a boy close to adulthood. Now Demeter had always been a caring sort and she loved those two boys as though they were her own. After a few days she planned to reward the kind king and his children. In the dead of night she took Demophon from his crib and prepared to make him immortal. At the climax of the ritual, she placed the child in the hearth to burn away his mortality, but before the last dregs of humanity could boil away, the king’s wife, Metanira came into the room for looking for something to drink. She saw the baby in the fire and screamed, snatching him up out of the flames and cursing the nurse-woman for trying to kill her son.

Demeter narrowed her eyes and glared at the foolish queen. She cast off her disguise and stood in all her divine glory in the middle of room. When Metanira released who the nurse-woman really was, she was terrified. She threw herself onto the floor and begged the goddess to forgive her. Demeter’s anger passed quickly and turned to pity. Now the ritual was interrupted she could not make Demophon immortal. Demeter explained this to Metanira, the queen began to cry, reminding the goddess of her own tears at the loss of her daughter. She promised Metanira that she would reward Triptolemos once she had found Kore, and as the queen bowed her head to thank her, she left to search once more.

Again she trawled across the dry earth, until at last, with her sandals began to crumble beneath her feet; she came to the strange and steaming pools on the edge of the world where the Stygian nymphs swim. They heard her sobbing and came to investigate. They circled, gliding just below the surface of the water, and listened as she lamented the loss of her daughter. Eventually, one among them was brave enough to lift herself up to the bank and asked the goddess why she was crying.

Demeter lifted her head and softly, weakly, said, “my daughter, my Kore, she was abducted. No one has seen her since.”

The nymph came a little closer. “Kore? But we’ve seen her,” she said brightly, “We can hear their voices carrying through the water. She’s in the Underworld.”

Demeter gazed up in amazement. “What?”

The nymph flitted backwards like a startled bird, before continuing excitedly. “Hades took her. He fell for her when he saw her on the hillside, they say. They say he even smiles now! That marble veneer of his cracks right through when she’s there. He loves her. We only see her when he lets her out to Elysium for the light.”

Demeter trembled with a mixture of sweet relief and bitter rage. She thanked the nymph and got to her feet. She didn’t dare go down to the Underworld, not yet. She had never ventured into her grim brother’s realm and she feared him now. Who could tell what centuries of death, of no company but shadows, who knows what could become of someone living like that? No, she no longer trusted Hades. She turned and made her way back to Olympus, back to the palace of Zeus. She burst through the doors of the throne room with furious energy and stood before the king of the gods.

Zeus frowned, puzzled. “Demeter? I’ve been sending for you for weeks! Crops are failing all over the known world, where have you…?”

“Hades has stolen my daughter from me,” she interrupted, in a venomous whisper, “abducted her, for all I know raped her. I will not rest until she is restored to me.”

Zeus raised his eyebrows. “Hades? Are you sure it was Hades who took her? I don’t think he…”

“He snatched her up from the meadows, brother,” Demeter snapped, “and now he’s keeping her down there. She’s been seen! I wouldn’t lie to you, Zeus, you know that!”

Zeus sighed. He couldn’t let Demeter continue to neglect the earth, but he didn’t want to upset his brother either. He thought for a few moments then decided, “Go to her. If she has eaten anything from the garden of the dead she stays with him, but if she hasn’t eaten a single thing, she can go with you.”

Demeter beamed. “Thank you, brother!” she exclaimed and ran from the palace without another word. She yoked her horses to her chariot and drove as fast as her tired limbs would allow. She clattered through the dark corridors that led down to the banks of the Styx; her heart thundering in her chest so hard her ribs seemed to rattle. Was it the stale air making her eyes water, or was it the thought of seeing her daughter again? But when she reached the crossing point that little demon doubt starting gnawing at pit of her stomach. Oh what if Kore had eaten from the garden? What if Hades had tricked her? What if, what if, what if…?

She crossed the river with worrying tearing at her heart, and stormed across the Asphodel Fields toward the palace with determination firing every step faster and faster, every instant feeling like an age, until at last she climbed the steps of the palace. The mist rolled in with her. She ached to think of her daughter forced to live in such a place. She found the two of them, at last, sitting behind the long marble table, leafing through documents. Hades looked up first and stood up sharply, but Demeter would not let him speak.

“Kore! My dear, oh thank divinity I found you!” she cried, rushing toward her daughter.

“Mother… you can’t call me Kore anymore, it’s Persephone now,” the girl said quietly, “I am married, you know.”

Demeter paused, shocked. She beat aside the desire to hurl insults at her brother, drew herself up and cleared her throat. “Zeus says that unless K- uh unless Persephone has eaten from the garden here, she is to come back with me.”

Hades sank back into his chair and groaned. He placed his hands, palms down, on the table and stared at his knuckles, half-wishing he had not warned his wife of the garden. Persephone looked at her mother, then across at him, then back to her mother, a troubled expression spreading across her pretty face.

“Mother…” she said at last, lowering her gaze, “Hades… I know you told me not to… I’m so sorry, I didn’t think it would…” She trailed off. “I had some pomegranate seeds. I’m sorry. I only had six, I didn’t think it would do any harm. I just… I really like pomegranates… um…”

Hades stared wide-eyed at her with barely concealed delight, but Demeter howled with despair. She fell to her knees and begged her daughter to say it wasn’t true, to say it was a joke or a lie, to say she had been tricked so she at least had someone to blame. When Persephone didn’t answer, she crawled to Hades, lying prostrate on the floor in front of him and pleaded with him to let Persephone go. He knew no way to reply. Demeter’s strike was harming his duties more than any of the other gods, but to give up Persephone? All he could do was to tell her to ask Zeus, just ask Zeus. At last Demeter crawled away, still shaking with grief. Persephone sat quietly in her chair, her head lowered, and her shoulders quaking. She refused to speak and shrugged Hades’ hand away when he tried to comfort her. The two sat in silence for what could have been hours but felt like decades until Demeter’s return. She ran across the room to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her ecstatically. Persephone looked at her expectantly. Hades shrank back, dreading what he thought she would say.

“Zeus told me that, ah,” she paused to compose herself, “he said that since you ate just six seeds, you need only spend six months here. The other half of the year, you can spend on the surface… in the sun… and we can tend the crops together. Obviously I would have preferred… well…it’s a compromise… but, oh my daughter, my Kore!”

Persephone embraced her mother. She had missed her; they had never before been separated. And she missed the sun too. The false lights of Elysium were nothing compared to the warm rays from Apollo’s chariot.

“Now,” Demeter continued, “since you’ve spent more than six months here already, I think it’s only fair you come up to the surface. We’ve got a lot to do, now.” She hesitated, remembering her brother. “Of course you’ll have things to organise. I’ll wait for you by the river. Don’t be long!”

Persephone turned to her husband and before he could speak, she threw herself into him, arms clinging tight around his waist. She held him there in the misty dark of their palace and told him how she loved him, and in between the kisses and sighs she said she would miss him, though he didn’t say a word. And then, in a flurry of gathered objects and awkward glances, she was gone, and Hades returned to his usual business.

Image by the author: Persephone and Hades (I’m quite pleased with this one, I have to say)

With Persephone by her side, Demeter returned to the earth and restored the crops. She kept her promise to Metanira and Triptolemos, for she taught the boy all the secrets of agriculture, of the soil and the mysteries of nature, and to thank the two goddesses, a great sanctuary was set up in Eleusis. After a time, there was even a shrine to Hades there, Persephone did rather worry about him not getting sacrifices. For six months, as ordered, she stayed above the surface helping her mother and the mortals called it “summer”, then on the seventh, she descended back to the Underworld and Demeter grew sad and crops withered in the cold and mortals called it “winter” as they huddled around the fire.

When heroes had to venture into the Underworld, the wisest would time their actions for the winter months, as everyone knew the terrible god of the dead was a little more lenient with the goddess beside him. So when the famous singer, Orpheus, lost his lover, Eurydice, and followed her down to the Styx, it was Persephone that first fell for his song and persuaded her husband to allow the couple a second chance, though they say that when Orpheus failed the task and Eurydice was sent screaming back into Asphodel with Orpheus wailing behind her, that this was the only time the king of the dead was seen to weep. Persephone’s beauty coaxed Theseus, king of Athens, into the Underworld with his friend Pirithous, who desired the beautiful goddess for himself, but Hades caught the pair of them. He didn’t dare kill them, these two men sons of gods, so he tricked them into chairs designed to hold the evilest souls in Tartarus. There they would have stayed, had the greatest and most famous of heroes, Heracles, not persuaded Hades to let his friends free, but Heracles’ story is another tale for another time.

Persephone was always loyal to her husband, a rare virtue among the gods, while Hades… During one particularly long summer, with loneliness hampering Hades’ work, Zeus coaxed him into seducing a nymph named Minthe who had a terrible weakness for glittering things and was dazzled by Hades’ chariot He would have succeeded had Persephone not caught him with his arms around the girl. Persephone was furious and turned the nymph into a mint plant, and although she forgave him, whenever she wanted to spite him or to warn him of going astray she would remind him of the mint plant at the steps of the palace, especially when she was leaving for the summer.

And that’s how it has been forever since. To this very day Persephone spends half her time on Olympus and the other down below. Though the Olympians’ lives have grown a little easier these days now that mortals have turned to other gods, in the Underworld Hades still toils, for the dead stay dead even when the minds of the living have turned away. All through the summer he works alone, keeping phantoms, punishments and paradise all in their proper place. But when summer turns to autumn and Persephone returns, well, a lot less work gets done. Hermes visits them sometimes, but Hermes was never the sort of god to spend much time in one place. So spare a thought, when you lounge in the summer sun, for Hades, way down there in the dark, waiting for the nights to draw in close again and draw his lovely wife back home.