#hxp

Greeks are putting out books to clean up the misinformation Westerners have spread about our myths and I LOVE it.

Ioanna puts the focus on Demeter and I am here for it! Demeter is the protagonist of this story, after all.

In the reviews so far it looks like Ioanna depicts the Greek gods as powerful, as we truly see them in our culture. I really hope it keeps the balance, as the reviewers say.

Greek author, Greek book cover illustrator (Yorgos "Lanthimos" Cotronis) and we are on for a very promising work!

You mentioned how the tale symbolizes arranged marriages and the separation mother/daughter had to go through.

The more I thought about it the more it makes sense 'cause I’ve heard this is how mothers reacted to marriage in the Ancient World,' cause they would lose their own daughters, with little hope of seeing them again, so that death and marraige seem like almost the same thing from the mother’s perspective. (not to mention Zeus agreed to let Hades to his thing and only "warned" him about Demeter’s reaction. <-I think that can be interpretated as two men agreeing on a marriage without the consent of the mother or the daughter).

On the other hand, I used to think the myth was only relevant to the lives of the worshippers due to Demeter’s grief; it explained the seasons, and it also explained the need for agriculture, which Demeter then taught to mortals to help them survive her periods of sorrow.

Then again I’ve seen ppl theorizing Persephone’s disappearance to be a metaphor for death, (Y'know, how it snatches people away suddenly and leaves grief in its wake) but I think that's a stretch.

Anyways, is there an actual answer or is the myth up to the interpretation when it comes to what it symbolizes/stands for?

thank you in advance! 💕

Hello! Just a small disclaimer: When dealing with a foreign religious tale it doesn't make sense to project our own experiences there since the locals have certain things in place to symbolise specific meanings, and express a certain message. So really, what one "thinks" of the myth is irrelevant. I mean, sure we can all think stuff, don't get me wrong! But I mean, we cannot just base our thoughts on vibes. We should look at the history and tradition of that country first. I'm happy to see people reading examinations of myths more carefully 😄

For example, arranged marriages in Greece were a regular phenomenon 3-4 generations back, and even today that they are not, we still have mournful songs for when her mother grieves losing her daughter in marriage. Our two most famous traditional songs speak of that. One is so bleak that it's downright depressing for a marriage ("Σήμερα μαύρος ουρανός, σήμερα μαύρη μέρα"). @wordsmithic has an extensive video series about the relationship of marriage and death in Greek folklore through the ages. I suggest this for starters (But better see the whole series if you can! It's short!):

Greeks see the tale of Persephone as an explanation for why winter exists, and we also recognise the parallels between Demeter and Persephone's situation with what our mothers and daughters have been going through for thousands of years. The abduction of Persephone is also part of a long-lasting motif of the Greek "Death and the Maiden" stories, so it wouldn't be a stretch to consider it in the broader imagery of "a Death force taking a young woman".

The abduction of Persephone wasn't a story that people related to death and death rituals, so it's probably not a metaphor in the sense you mean, but the story kinda connects death and marriage, again, by being a part of a bigger cultural viewpoint. In Greek tradition since antiquity, young unmarried people (usually teens, not kids) are buried with their (woud be) wedding clothes and sometimes their graves had/have wedding symbols and offerings. Today this is done to give "happiness" to the dead and simulate the marriage rite they never got to have. Also some consider these dead "marry Christ". Before Christianity there was also a motif the dead young women marrying Death (?) but I can't find the info now. I distinctly remember reading many posts about it with sources but I am very sorry I can't procure them now. As soon as I find it, I'll add it here! But you can consider Antigone, how she describes her tomb as a wedding bed, for starters.

Another video of @wordsmithic talks about that motif! (I watched all the videos as you can tell and although I knew most of the stuff, wordsmithic made very good connections there!)

Wow, the two aus on the unknown frontiers! These are two i developed with my sister @whats-wrong-aniki

Space race:

“The presigously made zoldyck space ship hovered in the hub of a popular star system.

“Ok killu. Its time to prove your mettle. You’ll go for the vising diamond, I’ll get the oprin. Both are located in the nearby system. Meet back here in two days.” Illumi instructed, making sure his space helmet is placed properly.

“Mhm, no problem…” Killua hummed, non commitedly as he made sure his void cube wasn’t malfunctioning while poised in his utility belt. There was no need for all his stuff to fly through the void of space if it released. He would get the cube and then vamoose with the closest space craft, even if he had to steal it. This would be the last Illumi sees him.

“Excellent. Stay on your toes. Sycronize your watch, and… see you in two days.” Illumi said, popping open the air lock and heading into his travel pod, going in the direction of his item. Killua lowered himself into the travel pod, the smooth seat gliding against his customized jumpsuit. It catered to his skin to keep him in homeostasis in most environments, and also held most of his devices for attacking or defending, wired into the programming.

He’ll have to get rid of it if he wants to keep off of Illumi’s radar.”

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Like a giant scavenger hunt, lots of people sign up a small fee (not that small but can be raised if you save up) to join the extensive and good reputation race. For every item you collect by the end, you get a set reward, which scales on how rare it is, so plenty of people join with the idea to gather as many low rarity items to get a good chunk of money if they are good hunters. Lots of planets in the universe hosts the race because of the good publicity and reputation (plus, knowing the great foot traffic that will come, it helps their tourist and scamming industry) but many citizens on the host planets resent how many rowdy or foreign aliens visiting their planets.

(I’ll leave some suspense for the posting of this story one day, but as for Killua and Gon: every year the zoldycks have joined the space race, they prided themselves being the few elite hunters that’s collected /every/ item on the scavenger list. Killua just wants enough money to run away from his sister, he just needs to get away from his pilot partner, illumi, and hitch a ride. Gon knows his father, ging, was human, but he doesnt know what his other half is. Ging just returned Gon to mito from space one day, but Gon really wants to go and see all of the majesty of space that his father left to explore.)

Water grave:

This is a fun one for me but less developed than the one above!

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“The first thing to greet them was the old man’s grating laughter. Gon was pleasantly surprised to see he wasn’t the last one to arrive.

The End of the World. A secret cove on the far side of the oceans, difficult to reach unless you were prepared and well informed for it. As you approach, it looked like dangerous rocky cliffside to avoid. But once you turned the ship into the cove’s natural whirling tide, the opposite aspect of the cliff was like it’s own secret harbor for pirates, mercenaries, those who search for sanctuary, and information traders. A villian’s cesspool. But everyone knew to respect the pirates. They were the royalty there. It was founded by them after all. Well, founded by the Pirate King anyways.

Netero, the pirate king, older than most anyone left wandering the earth, but still able to kick everyone’s butt, sat atop a pile of bronze and rocks shaped vaguely like a stone. He had called all of the ocean region’s pirate lords who resided over each of the 6 oceans and their seas to meet in the small meeting hall at the top of the cove’s terrain. It wasn’t always the best scene when all of the Pirate lords were gathered together- many had bad blood between the others, while others had undying loyalties that would lead to short fuses. Either way, tensions would be high no matter what. Maybe that was why the old coot was laughing now.”

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Netero opens up calls for the next pirate king, and the current pirate lords of the seas (Kite, Hisoka, Kurapika, Killua, Gon, and newly Merium) works off Netero’s pirate treasure hints to find Dark continent prizes. Who ever gathers all the hints to find the ultimate treasure becomes the next pirate king.

We don't learn it as a love story. In today's Greek culture we are not interested on the romantic feelings of the gods if it's not a romantic story - and Hades and Persephone is not one. You CAN make it a romantic story (and I love reading those) but we don't view or study it as such in Greece.

Ultimately it's a simple story about the changing of seasons. It doesn't need to have immense depth. The average Greek gives less thought to the myth than a person who writes fanfic for the story :P Of course, creatives always will add more depth to the story and this is fine.

As other Greeks have told you, the story is about the pain of a mother about her cruel separation from her daughter. It teaches us the power of nature and how you should not disrespect mothers because they will give you hell. What Hades and Zeus did was "legal" by the eras standards but the myth ultimately sides a bit with Demeter because what the gods did was a bit douchey. We get to see and understand her pain. I haven't seen a single ancient or modern Greek saying "Demeter was such a bitch for what she did!"

Given that in Greece women got in arranged marriages from antiquity till the 50s, the story could speak to them and their mothers. (Because a lot of times the bride had to go to live to the groom's house and leave her parents and the mother didn't have a big say in the wedding).

I wouldn't say Hades was a "dusty old man". He was a quality groom for the era, being a powerful and rich god. No ancient Greek worshiper would speak so badly about him. Maybe modern Greeks don't like Hades because he took Persephone to the Underworld in a questionable way. However, as you might know, "kidnapping the bride" was in some areas (namely Sparta) a wedding custom. So the custom of the ancient Greeks could be reflected in that myth. That's why many ancient Greeks didnt have an issue with kidnapping women in myths (many male gods did it) but they understand the pain of Demeter. The tragedy lays more in the fact that Demeter didn't know about the "wedding", not that Persephone was taken in such a way.

I also wouldn't say it's a tragedy since Persephone gets married (despite the weird dynamic with her and Hades marriage was a good thing in our stories for millennia), she gets to be queen of the Underworld and stay with her mother for six months. When in elementary school I was very relieved learning Demeter could see her daughter for so long. (I am an adult and I don't see my mother that long xD)

I received an ask about this so I thought I might concentrate some sources on a post here. Thanks to @coloricioso who guided me on this (and has done extensive research on the matter)!

Here is a big post from @coloricioso (Link) It is a post on Melinoe that is private for now (I think) so I will quote:

The first we must say is that Melinoe is an obsecure figure and the Orphic Hymn 71 is the sole literary testimony of her existence and the only other appearance of her name is found inscribed on a magical device (Athanassakis and Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, 195). The magical device is a tablet where she is called along with other chthonic deities like Persephone and Hecate.

There are some sources on her which I have no access to:  Études sur les Hymnes OrphiquesBy Anne-France Morand; Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft XV, 1978, pages 133-134.

Despite some people want to argue that Melinoe is Hades and Persephone’s daughter I don’t think we can agree on that, and even if we wanted to believe that, the Hymn 71 is not the best source to state Hades’ paternity.

I call upon Melinoe, safron-cloacked nymph of the earth, to whom august Persephone gave birth by the mouth of the Kokytos, upon the sacred bed of Kronian Zeus. He lied to Plouton and through treachery mated with Persepone, whose skin when she was pregnant he mangled in anger. (Athanassakis, 1977 edition)

I call upon Melinoe, saffron-cloacked nymph of the earth, whom revered Persephone bore by the mouth of the Kokytos river upon the sacred bed of Kronian Zeus. In the guise of Plouton Zeus tricked Persephone and through wily plots bedded her; a two-bodied specter sprang forth from Persephone’s fury. –> no skin tearing mention. (Athanassakis, 2013)

Invoco a Melínoe, doncella infernal de azafranado peplo, a la que dio a luz, en la desembocadura del Cocito, la venerable Perséfone en el sagrado lecho del crónida Zeus. Engañó éste a Plutón y se unió a ella con perfidia falaz y en su furor desgarró la piel de dos colores de Perséfone, que empuja a los mortales a la locura con sus fantasmas aéreos... –> He tricked Plouton and mated Persephone and in his rage he teared Persephone’s double colored skin. (Miguel Periago Lorente, 1987, Editorial Gredos). (comment from this version translator: “this verse is not clear, specially when it comes to the double skin color (disomaton, literally double body).. GESNER says it’s due her realtion with both divinities. For one part, with Plouton, her abductor, gives her black color; for other, Zeus, her own father, givves her white color. About the skin tearing we must think it’s due erotic rage of the father with the daughter (…) Some wrongly assume that Melinoe is Hades and Persephone’s daughter.”.

And I was told by my Greek friends that the Greek texts they found,say it’s Zeus who tears Persephone’s flesh.

So… we have rape by trickery and skin tearing; we really don’t want to use Orphic Hymn 71 as a source to try to claim Hades’ paternity, not at all.

If we say “well, Zeus Kronion is Hades and not Zeus”, the Hymn would make no sense by speaking of tricks and everything if Hades was Persephone’s legitimate husband anyway. Some say “why didn’t Zeus just rape the unwilling Persephone and period? why bothering into changing himself into Hades’ shape?”, remember that most of the times Zeus and other gods use seduction instead of raping by force (see LEFKKOWITZ book on this) Just as Zeus changed himself into rain, snakes, swans,*** etc., turning himself into Hades would make the union easier because he could charm and seduce Persephone in that way (and here we coud speculate that Persephone would be willing to have sex if Hades came in because she loved him, and not only slept with him to fulfill wife’s duties or whatever).

(btw, someone in Tumblr said it’s Hades who tears Persephone’s skin out of anger-jealousy of her pregnancy; but I fail to see what source they used to state such thing; from the translations I have read, I understand it’s Zeus the one who does that).

Anyway, if anyone has more information on this Melinoe topic I would be super thankful! ***edit: as a-gnosis said, to deceive Alcmena Zeus changed himself into her husband shape!

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Here is another post from @coloricioso with @a-gnosis adding on the matter (Link). I will quote it as well in case it dissapears in the future:

Two things I’m a bit tired of reading around here in Tumblr and why:

1) “Hades was an infertile god because he was the god of death” : Hades is the god who RULES on the world of dead, and here, again, if you didn’t get it already….. HADES IS NOT DEATH. HADES IS NOT THE PERSONIFICATION OF DEATH. NO, no, and NOOOoO.  THANATOS = DEATH. Okay… Hades is the son of Cronus just like Zeus, Demeter and the other gods who were fertile. And Hades was not born as “the king of the dead realm” so is not possible that he was “infertile by nature” associated to his ruler role. The only logic that I could follow is that after living for aeons in a land that is portrayed as sterile (dark, sunless, full of shadows as Homer portrays it in the Odyssey and the Iliad) his body lost the hability to generate any offspring or something similar. But we also have the portrayal of Hades as a god of wealth, richness and fertility, so the “infertile god” imagery is not necessarily a “canon”.

2) “Hades and Persephone had cute children!!”: NO. No. and NO. Get over it, they did not. And here is something for you:

Zagreus: is the child of Persephone and ZEUS in orphic tradition.

Melinoe: is the child of Persephone and ZEUS again in orphic tradition.

And NO, none of the above is “oh but maybe they refer to Hades bcz Hades was called Zeus Chthonion” because in first myth we have Hera’s jealousy on Zagreus -and seriously, why would that happen if it was Hades’ child- and in second myth it is clearly stated that Zeus took Plouton(Hades)’s semblance to trick Persephone. So. no.

Makaria: the only source on her is the Suda Lexicon, that is an encyclopedic lexicon (a dictionary-encyclopedia thing). Makaria’s meaning is “blessedness”. What the Suda Lexicon tell us is this: [A way of referring to] death. [Makaria was] a daughter of Hades. And [there is] a proverb: “be gone into blessedness”, meaning into misery and utter destruction. Or “begone into blessedness” [is said] by euphemism. Since even the dead are called blessed ones. [Makaria was] also a daughter of Herakles, whom the Athenians buried with very expensive funeral rites when she had died on their behalf.[1]

It doesn’t say she was a daughter of “Hades and Persephone” together, it only says of Hades. And since Hades can be used to refer not only to the god, but also his realm, it is most than likely that as a personifcation of death, she is someone who belongs to the Underworld as Thanatos, Hypnos, Erinyes and other chthonian deities.

The Erinyes: the orphic hymns (69, To the Furies) say they are daughters of Zeus Khthonios and Persephone (Holy and pure, from Jove terrestrial [Zeus Khthonios] born and Proserpine [Phersephone], whom lovely locks adorn). This is orphic tradition, because the Erinyes are either Gaia’s or Nyx’ offspring according to “classic” sources (as Hesiod). We could also suppose that despite the “born”, Hades and Persephone are the parents of the Erinyes because they ruled on them and whenever someone wanted to curse and invoked, they had to ask it to Hades and Persephone.

The other source mentioned is Statius’s Thebaid that never says “Hades and Persephone”, neither says “Hades”. Also remember he is a roman poet, so is not greek ancient source. Thebaid, XII, 557:  Of their race and famous sires I speak not; they were men, renowned Theseus, and of the seed of men, born to the selfsame stars to the same human lot, the same food and drink as ye are; yet Creon denies them fire, and like the father of the Furies or the ferryman of Lethe’s stream debars them from the Stygian gate and keeps them hovering doubtfully between the worlds of heaven and hell.

SO…. THE CONCLUSION: if you are making Hades-Persephone fan art/fan fiction and you want to get inspired, sure, you can imagine that Macaria and Melinoe are Hades-Persephone’s little cute babies or whatever. But do not state or assume that Hades and Persephone were portrayed and worshipped by ancient greek/roman people as a couple that had tons of little babies because it did not happen. :) thank you.  

a-gnosis adds:

I agree. I don’t mind at all when people interpret Zagreus, Melinoe and Makaria as children of Hades and Persephone, but it gets a bit annoying when people believe it’s canon.

There is only one ancient source I know of which seems to suggest that Zagreus was Hades’ son. A fragment from Sisyphus, a lost play by Aeschylus: “Now [I came] to bid farewell to Zagreus and to his sire, the hospitaler.” (source: theoi.com) But since it’s only a fragment it’s hard to say anything for sure.

About Zagreus’ identification with Dionysos in the Orphic tradition… I’ve been reading Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets by Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, and they believe that this myth and cult was created in the early fifth or late sixth century BCE, inspired by the mystery cult at Eleusis. Dionysos’ role in the Orphic cult was to be a mediator between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Therefor he could not be the son of BOTH Hades and Persephone, because that would have made his link to the Underworld too strong:  "It would have jarred with other aspects of his mythic and cultic persona and diminished his appropiateness as a mediator between the two worlds, the very role that the new cult demanded from him. He needed a foot in each camp, and Zeus’ paternity ensured him of this".

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coloricioso also told me that Zagreus is son of Zeus and Persephone. Makaria is only named in the Suda Lexicon and it only says "a daughter of Haides".

So the only deities who could be "daughters" to HxP are the Erinyes. Not Makaria-Melinoe-Zagreus as is repeated on Tumblr. Makaria = Hades (1 source only) Melinoe = Persephone x Zeus (1 source only) Zagreus = Persephone x Zeus (orphic cosmology, not panhellenic cult)

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