Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

The Pomegranate Seeds

Zeus immediately went down to the underworld to fetch Persephone back. But the King of the Underworld was in no mood to take orders from the King of the Overworld.

‘She stays. She is my queen.’

‘You dare to defy me?’

‘You are my younger brother,’ said Hades. ‘My youngest brother in fact. You have always had everything you’ve ever wanted. I demand the right to keep the girl I love. You cannot deny me.’

‘Oh, can’t I?’ said Zeus. ‘The world is in famine. The cries of starving mortals keep us awake. Refuse to return Persephone and you will soon discover the force and reach of my will. Hermes will bring no more spirits of the dead to you. Not one single soul shall ever be sent here. All will be despatched to a new paradise, or perhaps never even die. Hades will become an empty realm drained of all power, influence or majesty. Your name will become a laughing stock.’

The brothers glared at each other. Hades was the first to blink.

‘Damn you,’ he growled. ‘Give me one more day with her and then send Hermes to fetch her.’

Zeus travelled back up to Olympus well pleased.

The next day Hades knocked on the door of Persephone’s chamber. You might be surprised that he knocked, but the fact is, in her dignified and assured presence, even such a power as Hades found himself uncertain and shy. He loved her with all his heart, and although he had lost the battle of wills with Zeus he was sure that he could not let her go. Besides, he detected in her something … something that gave him hope. A small flicker of returned love?

‘My dear,’ he said with a gentleness that would have astonished anyone who knew him. ‘Zeus has prevailed upon me to send you back into the world of light.’

Persephone raised her pale face and gazed steadily at him.

Hades gazed earnestly back. ‘I hope you do not think ill of me?’

She did not reply, but Hades thought he could detect a little colour flushing her cheeks and throat.

‘Share some pomegranate seeds with me to show there is no ill-feeling?’

Listlessly Persephone took six seeds from his outstretched hand and sucked slowly at their sharp sweetness.

When Hermes arrived the trickster god found that he and Zeus had themselves been tricked.

‘Persephone has eaten fruit from my kingdom,’ said Hades. ‘It is ordained that all who have tasted the food of hell must return. She has tasted six pomegranate seeds so she must come back to me for six months of every year.’

Hermes bowed. He knew that this was so. Taking Persephone by the hand he led her up out of the underworld. Demeter was so overjoyed to see her daughter that the world immediately began to spring into bloom. It was a joy that was to last for half the length of the year, for six months later, in accordance with ineluctable divine law, Persephone was forced to return to the underworld. Demeter’s distress at this parting caused the trees to shed their leaves and a dead time to creep over the world. Another six months passed, Persephone emerged from Hades’ domain and the cycle of birth, renewal and growth began again. In this way the seasons came about, the autumn and winter of Demeter’s grieving for the absence of her daughter and the spring and summer of her jubilation at Persephone’s return.

As for Persephone herself … well, it seems that she grew to love her time below as much as her time above. For six months she was no prisoner in Hades but the contented Queen of the Underworld, a loving consort who held imperious sway over the dominion of death with her husband. For the other six months she reverted to the laughing Kore of fertility, flowers, fruit and frolic.

The world had found a new rhythm.

Hermaphroditus and Silenus

As the men and women of the Silver Age became accustomed to the striving and toiling and suffering that seemed now to be their common lot, so the gods continued to breed. Hermes, who had grown swiftly into handsome but eternally youthful manhood, fathered the goat-footed nature god PAN by the nymph DRYOPE.fn3 Behind the back of Hephaestus and Ares he also coupled with Aphrodite, a union blessed by the birth of a son of quite transcendent loveliness named – in honour of each parent – HERMAPHRODITUS.

This beautiful boy grew up in the shadow of Mount Ida, cared for by naiads.fn4 When he reached the age of fifteen he left them to wander the world. Travelling in Asia Minor he met one bright afternoon a naiad called SALMACIS who was splashing in the clear waters of a spring near Halicarnassus. Hermaphroditus, who was as shy as he was lovely, became greatly confused and unhappy when this forward creature, stunned by his beauty, tried to seduce him.