#prosperine

i should mention that i did NOT write these!! they are from like the 1st century AD lol

PROSPERINE:

Daughter of Jove, almighty and divine, come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline:

Only-begotten, Pluto's honored wife, O' venerable Goddess, source of life:

'Tis thine in earth's profundities to dwell, fast by the wide and dismal gates of hell:

Jove's holy offspring, of a beauteous mien, fatal, with lovely locks, infernal queen:

Source of the Furies, whose blest frame proceeds from Jove's ineffable and secret seeds:

Mother of Bacchus, Sonorous, divine, and many-formed, the parent of the vine:

The dancing Hours attend thee, essence bright, all-ruling virgin, bearing heavenly light:

Illustrious, horned, of a bounteous mind, alone desired by those of mortal kind.

O, vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight, sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight:

Whose holy form in budding fruits we view, Earth's vigorous offspring of a various hue:

Espoused in Autumn: life and death alone to wretched mortals from thy power is known:

For thine the task according to thy will, life to produce, and all that lives to kill.

Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase of various fruits from earth, with lovely Peace;

Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my life with blest abundance, free from noisy strife;

Last in extreme old age the prey of Death, dismiss we willing to the realms beneath,

To thy fair palace, and the blissful plains where happy spirits dwell, and Pluto reigns.

[i encourage everyone to read the homeric hymn to demeter its my favorite piece of literature and i think about it frequently.]

thinking about how she was simply a young girl picking flowers. something that should have been her sanctuary. she's a goddess of life. her mother is demeter. why should she be cautious in the arms of the earth that built her?

about how she was betrayed by her father, her grandmother, and her uncle all in one day.

"He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot, 20 And drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice, calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best. But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals, heard her voice. Not even the olive trees which bear their splendid harvest."

those lines always crush me.

"So long as the earth and the star-filled sky were still within the goddess’s [Persephone’s] view, as also the fish-swarming sea [pontos], with its strong currents, 35 as also the rays of the sun, she still had hope that she would yet see her dear mother and that special group, the immortal gods. For that long a time her great noos was soothed by hope, distressed as she was."

noos means mind, if im correct. she still has hope in the gods. even after this terrible act upon her. at this point her innocence is still intact as she longs for her mother.

"And the Lady Mother [Demeter] heard her. 40 And a sharp akhos seized her heart."

if im not mistaken, akhos translates to a terrible grief. quaking rn this isn't a love story this is a tragedy.

over and over demeter begs for respect from her fellow gods and goddesses, pleading for help in the search for her daughter. and no one dared to listen to her until the wrath and will of demeter could no longer be ignored.

the wrath of a mother cast the earth in wilting death, and olympus could no longer ignore her.

and even then, when they called upon her, she did not listen till they threw down their pride and obeyed her.

and when they finally heed her words, hades obeys, but not without a trick. he litters persephone with sweet words of how he is to be good to her... until she rushes to leave, and the sharade falls flat.

“So then, Mother, I shall tell you everything, ........ I sprang up for joy, but he, stealthily, put into my hand the berry of the pomegranate, that honey-sweet food, and he compelled me by biē to eat of it."

biē.

biē translates to force/violence. I CANNOT BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS STORY. PERSEPHONE DID NOT CHOOSE THIS LIFE.

even when demeter does everything in her power, even when she forces the hand of olympus, the love of a mother is not respected by the gods. the patriarchy of olympus is very evident.

.

don't get me wrong, i enjoy many modern interpretations of hades and persephone. but ive yet to see one done right. but i didn't write a whole ass essay on why modern interpretations miss the point of the original story for nothing. shaking the bars of my enclosure rn.

Jane Morris - a study

I always find it interesting to compare photo references, sketches and paintings. Especially when it comes to the Pre-Raphaelites.

Jane Morris appears in quite a number of Pre-Raphaelite artworks and can be spotted through several striking features such as her sharp jawline, long strong neck and large hands. Her characteristic downward gaze is also something seen throughout these photo studies.

Studying Jane through the eyes of Dante Gabriel Rossetti shows a fascinating portrayal of a more androgynous type beauty. Jane doesn’t necessarily come across as hyper-feminine in Rossetti’s work, nor does she have the soft edges that seemed to define a lot of women in art at the time. Instead, she signifies a defined enigmatic figure, who possesses femininity but also some of the more characteristically masculine features of the time.

Photos 1, 3, 5 and 8: Jane photographed by John Robert Parsons, at the arrangement of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1865

Photo 2: A profile of Jane by Rossetti in 1865

Photo 4: Another Rossetti sketch of Jane (neé Burden here) in 1858

Photo 6: Pia de’ Tolomei by Rossetti, completed in 1868

Photo 7: Proserpine by Rossetti, completed in 1874

It is the greatest struggle of humanity: to escape imprisonment by our own selves in our own selves. To be able to feel empathy is to be human. So free yourself, embrace this universe that is part of you as you are of it!

florence welch x pre-raphaelites (2/?)