Persephone | A Deep Dive into the Queen of the Underworld Pt. 2 

Demeter was the original mother bear. Threatening death for the entire human race was terrifying.

Personally, I think both the “beauty and the beast” and the “love of a mother” reads are valid. Both of them appeal to different aspects of human psyche. The fact that in the end Persephone can both be with her mother and her husband makes an interesting point that a women don’t need to give up her original family relationships or her sexual side(even tough it was the Greek extremely sexist view of female sexuality) , she can have both. What I like about her is that she’s a paradoxical goddess, bringer of life and death, maiden and spouse, dreadful and lovely.

Had you not mentioned it, I would not have noticed. You’re lovely, as always.

Hope you are okay. Fainting is not a little or harmless thing! From what I've heard/read, one of the interesting tidbits about Pre-Homeric myth was the absense of Hades altogether. Persephone/Kore in the oldest traditions is a dreadfully powerful figure, a source of awe and some terror. People are afraid to speak her true name.

I hope you're doing okay. Remember to take care of yourself! I think what makes Persephone fascinating for me is that she is perpetually between maidenhood and adulthood. Really interesting that Persephone is sometimes called "Virgo" when the constellation is sometimes associated with Demeter. In any case, a lot of modern writers like giving Persephone agency.

I can’t really explain why, but the fair and honest way you presented this well-researched video makes me somewhat emotional (in a good way). No sanitizing of the myth, just honestly approaching it and trying to understand the culture and people to whom this was important with good faith. The past wasn’t pretty (neither is the present, sometimes for the same or for different reasons), and I appreciate not shying away from the violence and sadness of the myth and the lived realities of many women. My feeling is, without understanding the symbolic connection between death and marriage, we can’t understand just how joyful and immense the return of Persephone and spring would have been to people back then.

The more I thought about it over the course of the time since I watched this video, the more I see our shifting focus from Demeter to Persephone being also a reflection of changing cultural anxieties. Instead of the child being torn from the mother too soon by an uncaring, patriarchal world, modern life for Western audiences in the developed world (where a lot of the romanticized retellings come from) seems to reflect the cultural anxiety of a helicopter parent or someone who is unwilling to give up their child and allow that transition to the next “impure” state. Identity foreclosure vs moratorium and development of an identity separate from the parent. I wonder if our more individualistic culture could be a factor in what parts of the story have staying power?

Please take care Cinzia, I hope it was nothing dangerous and hope you are doing well. ❤

I just wanted to add that Prof. Elizabeth Vandiver had a series of lectures through The Great Courses about Greek Myth, and when she talks about this myth she points out that when a girl married, her mother would likely never see her again. You mention the similarities between death and marriage, and I think having that cultural context cements that idea. Once a girl married, she was more or less dead to her birth family. Prof. Vandiver suggests that this myth may have been cathartic for ancient women because Kore does get the chance to return to her mother, as a girl may have been able to see her mother again at the eleuysian (spelling?) celebrations if her husband lived near her birth family. Thank you for your lovely essays, I look forward to every single one. 🖤

I LOVE the reframe of Demeter taking on the most powerful of the gods, and her fury is such that it cannot simply be undone. You are a gift. I'm going through a difficult time, and having these stories is helping ME to reframe my experience. I wish you a return to health.

I'm so sorry you haven't been well but it is so lovely to see you. Parasocial relationships are a bit odd, but watching your videos feels like having fun discussing ideas with an old friend. Please do whatever you need for yourself even if it means more breaks. We will wait for you. 💜

I absolutely understand that it is very odd that we as a society have decided to romanticize a character such as hades, but at the same time I absolutely love the depictions of him as such a figure in lore Olympus and the hades video game. An important note is that they change the narrative to be actually romantic and not unconsensual.

I've heard that aspects of Persephone/Kore as a chthonic goddess predate the existence of Hades as the ruler of the underworld, if that's true it seems like an interesting element to the history of the story, like was an aspect of the story tying together an older aspect of the underworld mythos with the newer?

I wrote a poem tonight and had help from this video and my previous notions of Persephone. It's title is, Persephone's Smile. Was not her own for as her love grew into the eon'ic Loyalty to Hades. Her smile became his joy and newfoundation of truth Sprang up within him for persephone's smile Gave the Lord of the Underworlds heart chills. How enamored an intertwined for eternity? The souls of their love are and has since the beginning and been rebirthed many times and died many times From dirt, she came to tend. The flowers, as Hades first laid eyes upon her., Hours turned to seconds, and he was instantly deeply in love with Persephone's smile and soul. Off to the undercaverns of their new world together, and into the ashes of their love;;; is loves Phoenix))) The true story is more than shadows and rainbows. Persephone's smile was not her own, for it had been ripped away from her as she was stolen from her home by her Uncle. Hades,,, sold off by her dad Zeus as if she had no Use Yet to Zeus, this was a future investment for families treaties. Persephone's smile Was akin to the unknowingness of mona lisas smile, so a loaf in thought and presence of soul as her rapes repeated as numerous as her heart beats stole, she counted the days into sands of eternity, so how could a true smile? Stay stick or even stumble upon her face. Where she'd rather it be covered in black lace? For then, freedom from hell would finally take place. These wishful woes, we're all she had. As her loneliness became her only a friend in the solitude of her silence, she lit up the darkness of the Underworld by the mere crack of a smile on her cheeks. A sparkling her eyes began from the cinder of her Phoenix formed her new truth where wishful woes are transmuted into burned shadows and a brightened sense of inner self. A rebirth from the death of her past for now Persephone's smile Had Transformed her from dirt to ashes by allowing her wishful woes to compound her soul into the diamond strength. ; Zeus Always knew she would become., For as her father, he knew of her strength and fortitude in persistence.. You see, he did not trade her off to her uncle as a destructive thing, but as a reconstructive life path as he knew of the power behind Persephone's smile. . Hope I did her story more properly than most.

I would never have noticed, but I hope you are feeling better. Don’t work too hard! I love your content, you are a fabulous human! ❤

I hope you feel better soon. Take care of yourself and don't push yourself too hard. Personally, I like the mythology where Hades was a covictim in all this: from being tricked by Zeus into taking the role of the Lord of the Underworld, being banished and shunned (as nobody would say his name directly and was treated with fear and distaste, despite his role being absolutely vital), his years of isolation and off handed remarks to Persephone 's beauty and Zeus's abduction, and the trauma bonding of Hades and Persephone, finding mutual understanding and comfort through a shared imprisonment. I also like the other mythology of Persephone being a dual goddess, one of peace and prosperity, and one of retribution and reckonings. Death and rebirth. Sorry for the long text. I just truly enjoy mythology, and you've given me a new viewpoint. Thank you!

I'm sorry you fainted, and I hope you're feeling better. 🖤

Hope you're feeling better and that you stay healthy! Enjoyed this as always ❤ 😊

Take care, Cinzia and thank you again for taking time out of your day to teach us new and cool things❤ much love and I hope you feel better

Thank you. Your episode was wonderful and so informative. There is so much I didn't know about both Demeter and Persephone. Their myth has always been one of the most moving and powerful ones for me. The love of a mother for child and all that she will do to save her. I've always seen Demeter as brave and strong. As a child, I had Sarah F. Tomaino's "Persephone", illustrated by Ati Forberg and "D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths." Both have beautiful illustrations capturing so much emotion. Many thanks, take good care and be safe and sound.

I hope you are keeping well. You raised a very interesting point towards the end of the video, about how this is a myth where Zeus is essentially put in his place by Demeter. I wonder if the depiction of the abduction of Kore by Hades in the Homeric hymns is perhaps overdramatized in contrast to the common perception in non-cult members. The more violent the abduction, the greater the impact of Zeus being unable to do anything other than placate Demeter. Which kind of makes it seem like an early, ancient fridging of Kore to make Demeter more bad-assed. Thanks for the lesson. I’m looking forward to the next chapter!

Someone once mentioned Greek myths were told as a “this is the reality of the situation” kind of story telling, given that Greek myths never hold back on certain horrific details. From this angle this particular myth is acknowledging the horrors of marriage from the time period, but also possibly the power older women did and could wield in aiding their daughters in the worst possible situations, an abusive marriage, and at the end of the myth the situation isn’t perfect, but at least not as bad, with a split custody situation. Granted the other angle of this myth is that it is used to describe why the seasons are a thing, but given your detailed dive, it seems reductive to say the myth is only about the seasons.

Please do not feel the need to apologize for recording after fainting. Take care of yourself! This video was lovely. I’ve read somewhere that Hekate helped guide Demeter through the underworld to find Persephone though I’m not sure what time period/source that comes from.

Dear Cinzia. Thank you so much for this well written, insightful, and dare I say it, delightful video essay, which you recorded despite being in ill health. Thank you for your dedication to your academic work and to classical mythology! I just watched the video as I am preparing canvases to paint, and it is a great support to my artistic process to be able to listen to work such as yours when I paint. I wish that I may one day have the income to be able to repay the debt of gratitude which I feel. If you may allow me, I would like to add a point to the story so far which is perhaps both a historical contextualisation as well as a second sad note to Persephone’s history. When I first started rereading the classical myths last year with the intention of making paintings of them, I came accros another reference to the rape of Persephone. I am referring specifically to the conception of Zagreus in Orphic myth, who is the son of Zeus and Persephone. The story is that Zeus transformed himself into a snake and raped Persephone, and she later gave birth to Zagreus, a beautiful son who was later killed by being eaten alive by the Titans. Zagreus would later be brought back to life Athena, but the story of Zagreus is perhaps yet another indication of the neolithic or early bronze age origins of this myth, likely specifically indoeuropean. In particular, I would like to reference a book chapter in the book Tracing the Indo-Europeans, entitled “Late Bronze Age midwinter dog sacrifices and warrior initiations at Krasnosamarskoe, Russia” by Dorcas R. Brown and David W. Anthony. The point of the chapter is that in the early indo european culture of young men going on raiding parties, there was a strong association between war, death, the transition from boyhood to a violent adolescence and this was symbolised in terms of dogs/wolves. The sacrifice and eating of family dogs as part of the initiation ritual of boys/young men into the war band meant a breaking of rules of society and a transcendence into a realm of death and violence. Very often these war bands are referred to as dogs or wolves themselves and they engage in war, pillaging, and if possible genocidal conquest of territory, and hence also genocidal rape. I must apologise for speaking about this matter in no uncertain terms; if it helps to explain, my PhD research concerns political conflict and I think it is essential to talk about the antiquity of this horrifying war crime. Yet, getting back to the myth of Persephone, both stories of the rape or abduction of persephone are explicitly associated with death, and a semi-permanent transcendence into the realm of death. Persephone both marries the ruler of the otherworld (similar to Celtic and other indo-european myths, this may sometimes be associated with the west, rather than the Sumerian underworld), and Zagreus is devoured alive and his bones are buried in the earth. Yet Persephone’s return to the land of the living brings the return of spring/the earth’s fecundity, while Zagreus is brought back from the dead through the reconstruction of his body from clay into which his heart is placed, while his bones make fertile the earth into which he is buried. I think Persephone is a story about the brutalising rites of passage which were present in indo-european and later proto-hellenic society. The point made at the end of Brown and Anthony’s chapter is that the end of the transition into manhood and the end of the wandering war band period was the burning or burying of the wolf/dog pelts that the young men had worn, and their return to society through marriage (most often to women they had captured while raiding/warmaking). Given the patter of indo-european conquest and raiding from around 3500 to 3200 BC (from what the archeological record plus recent genetic research into ancient remains indicate) these populations of men in the late neolithic appear to have expanded via conquest from what is today the Ukrainian steppe to western Europe, and would eventually reach India. The pattern of behaviour is so prevalent in this history that the sad and horrifying myths of Persephone only makes sense to me as an expression of women’s perspective as survivors of this horrifying historical period the lived experience of which only remains in a few ancient scattered myths. You’re right that this story is about the un-compromised love of a mother for her daughter in the face of male violence, but this narrative is not solely mythical, it is symbolic of countless historical events whose details have been lost in the retelling but not lost their poignancy. I agree with you, it is a sad mockery of human misery, horror and tragedy to turn the myth of Persephone into a love story trope that ignores and hides the sin of repeated collective and individual violence. Thanks again, and I apologise for the severity of my interpretation of this myth, but it is once again on my mind as I consider painting this subject.

Just a thought, Hades was the Greek deity of, among other things, minerals and precious metals. Which the Greeks would have gotten through mining, leaving huge tunnels and holes in the countryside. Which, considering the Greeks' romanticization of rustic life, could have been rather sad. I wonder if the abduction of Persephone by Hades could in some way have a connotation with the drive for wealth and resources taking away the landscape’s beauty. Also, a character who isn't in the original myth who I think would make sense in a retelling is Hera. We know how the deisdain Hera has for the various women Zeus had affairs with, as well as their children. It would totally in keeping with her character if Hera, the deity of marriage, arranged the forced marriage between Persephone and Hades as spite.

I got into Greek mythology in middle school I read whatever I could get my hands on then when I was in highschool I saw SO SO many people saying "well actually Persephone and Hades loved each other" and every time I have seen that it gives me a bad taste in my mouth

Obviously "puppy " was doing his/her job looking after Mummy!😊

I freaked the eff out seeing this!! I share your videos with my bestie, we love to watch and then geek out afterwards. Great work as always.

I hope your ok Cinzia please don't overwork yourself.

The first badboy trope ever written is Claudian De Raptu Proserpinae, there is articles about it

Your face looks beautiful as usual, I hope you are ok.

It’s so nice to see your face in the videos again! Feel better soon, and thank you so much for this gem ❤️

The only way your face is distracting is just by how beautiful you are!❤️ hope you’re feeling better and can take some time to rest. I think most of your audience recognises that a huge amount of time and effort goes into researching these videos and that you aren’t a machine! Be kind to yourself ❤

Damn, hope you're doing okay

Thank you

I hope you'll be feeling better soon. You look wonderful and beautiful as always. And thank you for making history and mythology informative, accessible, well analyzed.

I love Deméter, My beautiful goddess ✨

Hope your feeling better - working through your videos definitely worth a watch.

Hi Cinzia, hope all is well and know you are appreciated. Very much enjoy your content and much respect for the time and research you put into your content while juggling the rest of your life. Would love to see modern story retellings move away from enemies to lovers or other similar tropes glorifying the topics you covered in exceptional detail. Makes my head and heart hurt to think people continue revive these tropes again and again.

Damn fainting and going through with filming, and even apologising for your face even though you still look gorgeous, what a woman!

I hope you are well! Another great video! Why is it women only gain power and status through violation? (quasi-rhetorical) It is seen in sci-fi and fantasy stories all the time, Marvel, DC. I don't understand it. I mean, I do, patriarchy. I much prefer your take, of Demeter usurping Zeus!

It's hard to work with Persephone as a Goddess if you don't romanticize her or make her somehow strong and independent, even if it's not true. I wanted to work with her because she covers all my interests--agriculture, spring, flowers, but also underworld and death. But the problem is she doesn't even want to be in the underworld. And it's hard even to enjoy winter and fall if you know it's only because Demeter is mourning. I mean logically we know that seasons occur because of the earth's location on the axis. So it's easy to modernize her, but in the end, the reality is the reality.

As someone else who deals with fainting, I didn’t notice until you mentioned it. And again, as someone who deals with fainting myself, please take care! I’m sure you know how best to deal with your own body, so I’ll just say remember to hydrate lol :)

Was nice to see you talking in person. A great video. Looking forward to the video on the devil.xx

What's funny is that she's telling the story those three books /movies are exactly what I thought of when referring to Persephone and Hades

Cinzia in a nice cardy telling me interesting things and the world seems a better place indeed.

Im curious about the variation of the myth of persephone finding an entrance of the underworld during hades ventures of his kingdom to find a queen in escape of her mother who was in more or less terms a helicopter parent ?

I just adore this series! Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your insights into this fascinating mythological figure. :)

Thank you so much for this neat Persephone video!!

She kind of reminds me of Lilith. Very powerful, very innocent woman who just wanted freedom and instead was screwed over by the man in charge.

I hope you feel better!!!

Oh wow! I Hope you’re alright! You look lovely as usual.

Perfect video to watch while I play a round of Hades

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS I'M HAPPY TO SEE YOU AGAIN

I've interpreted the modern rewriting of Persephone and Hades's story as just that, rewriting. It's not glorification but a way to almost entirely change the story to restore her dignity and agency. At least, that's how it seems in the couple of versions I've read. 😅 I've heard before that Persephone alone exists as the ruler of the underworld in earlier myths and that Hades is added in to the myths later for patriarchal reasons. Is there any truth to that?

Hope your good Cinzia, and really want pomegranates now haha ♥️

I was looking so forward to this video, and am so happy it's finally here! I'd never comment on your make up or sth. like that, you should see my face after my morning run to catch the bus 🙈 I hope you're doing better now, and I really hope you can go easy on yourself - as a fellow perfectionist, I know it's easier said than done, but still.

Personally, I think at least part of the allure of the retellings is that it gives Persephone some agency in her own life, which can be empowering in and of itself. In the myth, it is everyone else deciding what is best for her; having her choose to go with Hades or choose to stay in the Underworld offers her precisely what she never had, what the original storytellers never gave her; a choice.

If this myth was supposed to be used in or metaphorically reflect initiation rituals for girls / young women, it is so sad and angering that it appears the ancient Greeks were well-aware of the harm they were doing to their own girls / young women by marrying them off without their consent. They knew these girls would view marriage as “death” and would go through it kicking, screaming, and pleading for their mothers as their fathers made this decision FOR them. And yet they still did it and used their religion to justify it, portraying this practice as as necessary as the changing of the seasons itself in their agricultural society.

All that matters is that you’re alright!

Please take care of urself ❤

Would not have noticed if you hadn’t said anything. You’re face is beautiful as always, please take care.

Thank you for your perseverance, but take care and time off if you can.

Likening the pomegranate to balls and the seeds to *seed* gives me a very ick interpretation of Hades tricking her into eating the pomegranate seeds

I understand what you're talking about abdaction and rape, but a lot of us actually had a controlling mother that saw her children as an extantion of her own body, and not as individual human beings. Thats why for me so easy to empathise with those modern retellings - because mother/dougther relationships can also be toxic and abusive, but this theme is NOT popular theme to explore in literature. At leat Hades sees her as an adult human being and not a blood property - in retellings, I mean.

आमा ! धन्यवाद !! 💕

I can't wait for the Hades and devil's video 👿

If my mother was a Greek goddess she would be Demeter ❤

New subscriber ❤

I hope you are doing well.

oh, Cinsia, there's one major issue you mentioned in the Demeter vid, but didn't expand in this one: did Persephone eat the pomegranate seeds voluntarily, did she do it in almost total secrecy, or she was forced to eat them?

Hope you're ok!

Why did you faint!!???😢 I hope whatever issue you have is being taken care of ❤

So I wasn't the only one tat saw it from the perspective of a mother trying her everything to find her kidnapped daughter tat was constantly being raped and her family doing absolutely nothing to help her it was disheartening and disturbing to read abt wen I was child growing and people saying tat she deserved wat happed to her wen she did nt 💔

I Just want Plato Cratylus in Hades part, this version of Hades amazing

i do wonder about why hades and persephone in particular are so incredibly romanticized (i dont usually like how that word is used wrt dark fiction but its pretty literal here i think. myths of this calibre are a little different i feel), when apollo and hyacinthus are *right there*. but they were a queer couple, so i guess thats why they havent been talked about historically. theyd have a lot of catching up to do against hades and persephone for modern audiences :/

My favorite retelling is _The Dark Wife_ which is lesbian romance between Persephone and female Hades

So cool love your videos

14:08 =Plus the fact amongst the siblings, he is the only one with a good marriage tract record- one extramarital affair... Plus he's powerful and rich... That is better than being a concubine to a water god or teh supreme God😂

I think you may have missed one reason why people love retelling this story as a romance. Out of all the marriages between the gods and goddesses, Hades and Persephone is the only relationship where the husband is not a serial cheater. That probably makes him the best option to romanticize.

6:45 is this quote from the version u read from towards the end of the hymn when Hermes comes to get Persephone? The version I heard didnt have the "bedmate" part. I think another part of why the story is so popular is becuz it depends on the interpretation u read. The version I heard had the two sitting on a couch and Persephone was crying becuz of course she missed her mom. In the version I heard (it was a reading of the hymn), it sounded more like she was crying becuz she missed her mom more so than becuz she was being... mistreated by hades. That may have been on purpose. That's the thing about Greek mythology. it depends not only on who wrote it (a Greek or Roman) but also how someone else interpreted it. So it's at least 2 degrees of separation becuz it started out as oral tradition.

Nepthys is cute too, and deadly.

Hope you get better physically. If it helps, Your videos don't need to improve, so health first. Before I write anything about the topic, I wait for the last video to drop. I wanted to comment on the first one, for example the lines about nobody hearing her cries, but I hoped this will come up eventually. And it did, which is cool. Dropped a comment below a Lore olympus video once. Never have I ever turned from a fan to a detractor with this much disrespect towards any media, than Lore.

Hopefully there was someone to catch you on the way down. Sorry you have to deal with that.

My favorite myth.

All stories are retold one way or another. It doesn’t make them less valid. The Hymn wasn’t even the original as that probably involved gods shapeshifting into equine. People aren’t romanticizing the myth. They’re retelling it to be a romance. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

The first opera is written in 1607 is L’Orfea based on the myth of Orphus. I don’t know if it’s true in all production but I saw a filmed version from I think the 80’s, and he goes down into the underworld and meets Hades and Persephone it was very clear that Persephone HATED the man she had to call her husband.

Zeus didn't really have a say in it. The fates said it was so that Hades would be with Persephone and know God is greater than Fate.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

When I was little, my mom told me she loved to eat pomegranate from her aunts tree. And she was obsessed with Greek mythology. Hmmm.

And about the Brides of Hades , there is funeral Epigrafics of girls, like the Theophile one of girls that really thing that they Will marry Hades

Oh my, I hope you are o.k. Take care of yourself.

Wellllllllllll I'm sorry but I'ma pass on this one. I love learning, I understand history sucks: I don't feel like feeling gross today, and I'll take your warnings to heart. Already not liking some of these definitions I never knew 😔 Hope my spam makes up for your lack of view time.

Why did you faint? Please take care of yourself!

I hope you are feeling better. Don't feel the need to make or finish a video if you are not well, it can wait, we can wait, your health matters more. This video was a hard watch. It reminded me of of an episode of Terrible Writing Advice where JP talked about "alpha males" in "romance" novels, expressing shock at a guy love interest kidnapping and abusing a woman love interest and it is presented as a good thing. It is shocking that even in a genre who primary readers are women and girls still lionizes what are abusive toxic husbands and boyfriends, and it can be very dangerous when adolescents read such stories and thing such relationships are normal and good. The dumbest part of it is there are good stories that can be told about the myth that don't ignore the rape and abuse. A story could be made of Persephone escaping the abusive relationships (both Hades and Zeus) she is in, it could even be a romance with the love interest helping her out. She could over throw her abusive "husband", perhaps allying with the Titans imprisoned in Tartarus, unleashes them and waging war against Olympus. A Taken style story could be made with Demeter playing the role of Bryan Mills.

I hope you are ok, I can care less about your makeup but more on your content and health.

0:20 wait wait wait wait you’re telling me you fucking FAINTED and still made this video?! Bruh 😭 like no get some rest 😭 it can wait

I hear the modern day Greeks still have a tradition of a folk saint who's daughter was abducted by a Turk. Interesting to see how the Greeks slowly adapted their stories to reflect their current oppression.

So this is generally speaking a good video but leaving out Adonis and how he fits into this myth is... a decision you made.