"They tell the tale of my downfall in epic pomp and ceremony. It’s been written into the histories, described at length by orators, discussed in every household in the land. I have become a cautionary tale for young mortal maidens. “Don’t stray too far from your mother’s watchful eye in fields, or you shall end up just like her,” they murmur in warning tones.
And truly, Mother did her best to shelter me.
Fiercely protective, Demeter was a wild lioness when it came to defending her little goddess. It was a mighty feat of maternal instinct that kept me safe from encroaching Hermes and deviant Apollo - both set as they were on possessing me. In truth, neither would-be suitor stood up very well to Demeter’s silver scorpion tongue.
It still makes me giggle to think about the God of Light and Plague cringing as my mother interrogated him about the rumours of the nasty curse he put on poor Cassandra - damned with the gift of prophecy, never to be believed… all because she crushed his fragile ego. Now who could respect a husband like that? I breathed a sigh of relief when Apollo scurried off without the prize of my maidenhead. In truth, many tried, but not one succeeded in getting near me.
Not until him.
Of course, I’d heard of him. Who hadn’t?
Hades, God of the Underworld, was a mystery to all of us. While my father, Zeus, ruled the sky, and Poseidon ruled the oceans, he was content dwell underneath it all, searing fear into the hearts of living. Feared and loathed, he was said to rule the Underworld with an iron fist, jealously guarding the souls over which he governed, and incensed to the point of darkest revenge by those who attempted to cheat death. To common knowledge, he had never taken a bride. He’d never shown any interest in the concept of love, or stumbled anywhere near the danger of Cupid’s arrow.
My future paramour… the consummate bad boy.
Not one to fear death, I’d never dwelled much upon the thought of him or his legend. Hades was a dark unknown to me, and that was how I hoped it would stay. I learned much later that unbelievable feats of magic do happen, and even the God of the Underworld could fall in love.
Here was the unbelievable part - he fell in love with little, old me.
The first time I saw him, I was terrified. I mean, even he has to chuckle at his own dramatics - bursting through the ground like that, all fire and brimstone and doom? He was a muscle-bound hulk of a creature, complete with a terrifying, snarling guard dog with three heads!
Yes, I took one look, hitched up my skirts and hightailed it in the other direction. He caught me, of course. Easy as taking a pomegranate from a baby.
You see, he’d been watching me for a long time. He’d seen the way Demeter resisted every possible advance on my person; ever watchful, ever vigilant. Yet he wanted me for his own.
Clearly, forcible kidnap was the only answer.
They call it “The Rape of Persephone”. It actually took place in Nysa, but my cults attribute the scene of my abduction to varying lands, depending on the cult. They paint it in ribbons of colour - terror imprinted upon my usually serene face.
In truth, he was in no way violent with me. Sure, I screamed a lot - but it was from fright, not pain. He simply picked me up as if I was a feather, secured me to his girdle with rope, and gently carried me down to the Underworld. Away from the sun, away from the light, away from Demeter, away from my beloved fields - this was why I cried.
(The deflowering came later, and I didn't mind one itty bit.)
The Underworld was fascinating, and not at all as alarming as I had imagined.
Later concepts of hell were derived from Tartarus, a place in the Underworld akin to a prison of punishment. It was a horrific abyss of torment and suffering - or so I heard. I never saw it, for Hades didn't wish me to lay eyes on it. Instead, he had built me a beautiful residence in the Isle of the Blessed (sometimes called the Elysian Fields), and it was here that he first took me after capturing me from Nysa.
I had screamed and cried myself into a numbed silence by the time we reached the fabled banks of Acheron. I was so severely unnerved by Charon the Ferryman, that I closed my eyes as he paddled our party across the River Styx. Cerebus usually stood guard on the opposite bank, but on that day he was with us in the ferry, panting happily and occasionally licking my hand with one of his tongues. How I grew to love that dog… despite his formidable appearance, he was a sweetheart really.
By the time we reached Elysian, exhaustion had set in. Hades simply carried me up several flights of stairs in my new home, and laid me tenderly upon the bed, covered me with silks and stroked my long hair until I fell asleep.
When I woke, it was morning, and I discovered that there was light in Elysian after all. It was different than the light of the sun - muted and ethereal, but it still carried with it warmth. Cerebus was at my feet, barking happily at my wakened state, and soon Hades appeared at the door.
As I looked upon him there, I noticed his beauty for the first time. He was all thick cords of muscle wrapped around solid bone structure, but there was a delicacy to the features of his face… I saw that now. His expression was one of affectionate wonder, as if he was gazing upon the most beautifully delicate flower on earth.
“Cherished one,” he began in his deep voice, “how I have waited for you.”
He came to me then, and kissed me deeply on the mouth. He tasted like the coolest, purest crystal waters. I began to drown in them before we came up for air, only to plunge downward into that passionate embrace once more. That morning, in the dappled light of the most mysterious place in existance, I learned the deepest pleasures of the flesh.
Afterwards I lay in his arms, with no shame of my nakedness. Any concept embarrassment was long forgotten - I was a Goddess, and I was wrapped in the embrace of the God who loved me.
Hades smiled and laughed… oh, you should see him laugh, and the tender playfulness of our love warmed my heart in those long hours we spent in that bed. It was here that the myths would say a foul trickery occurred - Hades means of binding me to him forever - but I knew exactly what I was doing.
He fed me from his own hands, my lover. One, two, three, four pomegranate arils slipped past my lips and squirted their sweet juice upon my tongue. I would have eaten four hundred arils, if it meant I would always stay with him.
Meanwhile, Demeter in her rage had cast a terrible drought upon the Earth, and my father was obliged to intercede. Zeus dispatched Hermes to rescue me from the Underworld, which he did - snatching me out of Hades embrace and bringing me back out into the sun.
I was bereft. Not even the reunion with my mother could console me, and it was then that I revealed my secret.
I had consumed food in the Underworld, and therefore as promised by the Fates, I would be condemned to spend an eternity there. I smiled secretly, for I knew that I would be returned to my love.
Surprisingly, Demeter did not cry. She was clever enough to declare that the fields of the earth would not bloom without the goddess Persephone, and so my fate was revised.
For each pomegranate seed that passed my lips, I would spend a month in the Underworld as the wife of Hades. The earth would not feel sun, and it would not grow crops for these four months, and I would lie in the muted light of Elysian with my beloved. The rest of my year was spent in my fields, in my sun, with my family.
The four months that I spend with him give me the strength to survive without him for the next eight, and so life passes sweetly, year in and year out.
Do not weep for me, for my tale is not one of woe. There is a balance in all things; of the dark and of the light, of warmth and cold, of resistance and surrender, and often the darkness is not what we should fear.
Love is to be found even in the most mysterious of places"
- Eloise
...and that's the pain and torture of finding love...
...and that's the pain and torture of finding love...
