Archetypes in Greek mythical stories - Persephone

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: Archetypes in Greek mythical stories - Persephone : : Case text: : DEMETER & PERSEPHONE : Demeter is the Goddess of the harvest, the fertile ploughed earth, the Corn Mother; Persephone, the Corn Maiden, is the seed planted underground. Around the 15th century BCE, the Mycenaens brought Demeter from Crete to Eleusis, the place where she found her daughter and where the initiation of women into the Great Mysteries was performed. Classical Greek myth tells of Persephone having been abducted by Hades to become Queen of the Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, implored the deities to let her daughter return to earth. They consented but, in the meantime, Persephone had eaten a seed from a pomegranate, forcing her to remain in the underworld. As a compromise, it was agreed that she would inhabit the earth for part of the year and the underworld during the other part, a metaphor for the growing season and non-growing season. However, long before the mythical Hades was ever conceived, in more ancient, pre-patriarchal times, Persephone was Queen of the Underworld and was another form of Hecate. Originally, the Triple Goddess was represented by Kore, the virgin; Demeter, the mother preserver; and Hecate or Persephone, the destroyer. In later years, Kore and Persephone became the same Goddess. The pomegranate was an ancient symbol of female fertility; the souls of the underworld ate pomegranates so that they could be reborn. They are standing in front of a bas-relief of their reunion from Eleusis, Greece, early 5th century BCE and are holding Boetian figures used in the Demeter and Persephone rites from the mid 6th century BCE. Demeter's ribbed seed necklace is from Kourion, 400-300 BCE; her earring is part of a pendant with 2 bees from Mallia, Middle Minoan, 1700-1550 BCE. Persephone's pomegranate pendant is from Enkomi, Cyprus, 1400-1300 BCE; her earring is from Mycenae, 1550-1500 BCE; her bracelet from Thessaly, 8th century BCE. : : +++ Jan's analysis : When Persepone walks through the woods and suddenly hears the sounds of people crying from a deep gap in the earth, she askes her mother Demeter why she doesn't help these people. Demeter is a bit a stern, goal focussed and rational Goddess who answers her daughter that she has to set her priorities and that people who are not dead have higher priority than the spirits of the people who have deceased recently. Demeter feels some guilt about this choice. But it's the reaction of Persephone that's interesting; she says 'But you can't neglect this crying!' and Persephone immediately jumps into the gap, accompanied by a torch her mother gave her. She didn't know which dangers or horrors she would face but her need to help the suffering was paramount. Persephone helped ('coached') the desperate spirits to renew themselves. The association of 'growth' and helping other people ('being saintly') can also be seen towards the end of the myth when Demeter rejoices because her daugther reappears above-ground and everything immediately starts to grow in nature. I'd bet that the Tarot card makers have been inspired by this ancient myth and the timeless archetype of the 'giver' when they made the card of The Queen; showing the female power of letting corn and other plants blossom. : Classification of Persephone: Self Sacrificing Style. : Jan

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