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"You will have power over all that lives and moves, and you will possess the greatest honors among the gods." ~Hades to Persephone, Homeric Hymn to Demeter
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The first time Persephone returned to the underworld, after having spent eight months with her holy mother, she brought back seeds of the earth with her. She had wheat, narcissus, apples, and berries. Her husband watched her plant the seeds and did not say anything. For the next four months, she watered the plants faithfully, keeping track of time the best she could to mark their bloom.
When she left that year, the soil was as barren as it had been upon her arrival. It was then that Hades told her that living things could not grow in the underworld.
She returned to the outside world to find that she was with child. Her mother did not rejoice at the news, and that seemed so unlike her mother to Persephone. All season long her belly grew, and she, in her happiness, did not give mind to the dark looks of the immortal gods.
Hades received her in the underworld, and she brought Hekate with her. She wrapped her arms around her husband and kissed him willingly.
When time came for her to deliver, Hekate sat with her and held her hand. Persephone suffered the birth pangs for three days before the child left her womb. When Persephone asked after the child, Hekate only said, "Nothing grows in the underworld, Kore. Not even you could change that."
She understood and wept.
---
Nothing grew in the realms of Hades, and there was nothing to mark the passage of time. She asked Hades once about the pomegranate plants as she plucked the delicious fruit off of a branch. As quickly as it was taken, another grew to replace it.
"These plants were here before the place was claimed by Death," he said, "Everything remains here as it was then."
She bit into the fruit, and let the juice drip down her chin and on to her white gown. She watched it stain the fabric and cherished that sign of change.
"How long have I been here?" she asked.
He gazed at her for a long time before replying, "You've been here too long, Persephone." With that, he stalked out of the room, leaving her with her pomegranate seeds.
---
Persephone was the only one who passed between worlds, save for Hermes, who brought souls into Hades and also guided Persephone in and out of the underworld.
Not even Demeter, who barely got through the winter without Kore, visited her daughter in the Underworld. So when the Goddess of Love came to see her, Persephone knew that it was not an ordinary visit.
Aphrodite brought her a golden box that contained an infant boy. He was beautiful and lively and Persephone asked about his parentage. She did not take her eyes off of the child, and she felt her heart fill with a longing she had not felt since she first gave birth in this dread world.
"He's born of an unholy union," Aphrodite told her, "If I leave him with them, they'll kill him."
Persephone gasped at that and reached out for the child. Aphrodite eyed her rounded belly, and stepped back to place the infant out of her reach.
Persephone drew her dark cloak around her, hiding the curve of her belly, ashamed at its presence. Her womb, she knew, would suffocate her darling child while she lingered in this place of dead. And when she returned to the outside world, she would only have the blood on her thighs and the tears on her cheeks to show for all the time she carried it.
Aphrodite must know of her plight, Persephone thought. Why else would she dangle this beautiful child in front of her, baiting her with a chance to raise him as she could not a child of her own?
Aphrodite returned her gaze to Persephone's face, her jewel bright eyes twinkling. "I need you to raise him, Persephone. But remember: One of the Graces will be just as glad to bring him up. But you need this more."
Persephone's cheeks burned. How dare the Goddess of Beauty insult her so? She was the queen of the dead, her lot second only to that of Hera. But she remained silent, knowing that Aphrodite was telling the truth.
"What do you want?" Persephone asked, swallowing her pride.
"You must swear an oath, Persephone, that you will not try to keep him once he's grown. Swear that you will not feed him the fruit of the underworld and bind him to this realm."
Persephone had not even considered the possibility of keeping him beyond his childhood, so taken was she by the possibility of having this child for her own. She remembered now that the dread fruit of Hades was what had bound her to this place. The pomegranate seeds that had tasted so wonderful in her mouth, their sweet red juice on her lips. And she had wanted it then, the seeds given to her by Hades. The fruit that had killed her. He had claimed that he loved her, and she had thought, how could love come in the form of death?
So she spoke the words Aphrodite knew she would, "I swear by Zeus, my father, that I will not feed the child the fruit of the Underworld."
Aphrodite remained unmoved and said, "No, Persephone. Swear by the Styx."
"I swear by Holy Styx." Persephone said, not really caring what she promised. Her fingers ached now to touch the child.
Aphrodite smiled and handed the baby to Persephone. His golden hair shined even in the darkness of the room, and his hazel eyes gazed up at Persephone. The infant was second only to Aphrodite in beauty.
"I will return soon to see him," Aphrodite said, and Persephone nodded, not taking her eyes off of the radiant child.
---
Persephone called the child Adonis, and clung to him as the only sign of life in Hades. She forgot about her own inability to create life and ignored her swollen belly. When she gave birth, Hekate held her hand as always, and brought Adonis to her later.
When Hermes came to Hades to escort Persephone to the land of the living that season, she refused to go. Her husband was too happy to have her there to complain much about the infant she doted on.
Aphrodite kept her promise and returned to see him soon. She brought baskets of fruits and bread with her. He ate the food that the Goddess brought and began to grow; fast and steady like a myrtle tree.
When Adonis began to walk, he began to follow her around the underworld. When she sat in her rocking chair in the gloomy garden of Hades, he sat by her feet and played with dead, fallen flowers. He reached once for a pomegranate on the tree when he was tall enough to reach it, and she realized that if she wanted to, she could let Adonis eat the fruit of the dead and keep her vow still. But she knew that the fruit would kill Adonis the way it had killed her, and he would remain forever as he was and would never know the joys of adulthood. So she slapped his hand away, and took the pomegranate for herself. She bit into it, and its sweet scent filled the room. When the boy reached for the fruit in her hand, she held his small hand and brought it to her lips to kiss.
"You must never, ever eat the fruit of this garden, my sweet. It will bring upon you a death of certain kind," she told him, and he looked up at her like he understood. It was a warning she often repeated to him.
When he grew old enough to understand, he asked her, "Why does it not kill you?"
She wanted to tell him that the fruit had already done all it could to her, but she replied, "Because gods don't die."
---
When Adonis grew up, he filled the heart of Persephone with a different kind of longing. As she waited for Aphrodite to reclaim him, a part of her began to remember that he was not really her child. Something dead awakened inside her at the sight of him now, her breasts swelling under his fingertips, her lips quivering at his touch.
When Aphrodite came for him, Persephone did not give him up easily. She had kept her promise of not feeding him the fruit of the underworld, but she understood that Adonis was more hers now than Aphrodite's. She had thought once, long ago when Aphrodite first brought him here, that she would be able to part with him once he was grown. But she was less willing to give him up now than she had been all those years ago.
Aphrodite invoked her oaths, and Persephone was bound by her word to give him up. But Adonis had learned well the ways of the underworld. He came to bid her farewell while she sat in her garden. Before he left with Aphrodite, he kissed Persephone's pomegranate tainted lips and bound himself to her realm willingly.
Persephone thought that Adonis had made his decision too quickly, without having seen the world outside. It was decreed by Zeus that Adonis would spend four months a year with Persephone, four with Aphrodite, and four where he pleased. And when Adonis did not return to her four months later, Persephone knew where he had chosen to spend his time.
When Hermes came for her that year, Persephone left Hades to visit Demeter for the first time in many years.
---
When Adonis began to hunt, Persephone begged him to be careful. Aphrodite responded by granting her lover eternal life, knowing that that was the one thing Persephone could not give him.
Persephone arranged her time in the underworld so that it coincided with Adonis' visits and began to visit him in the forests. When he killed the beasts, she would touch them to make death quicker and easier on them. And when he complained about her meddling, she laughed and said, "It must be Aphrodite who has made you so violent."
Once, when he was exhausted by the hunt and resting, she kissed him only to have him push her away. "This isn't right. Not for us," he said.
"You've been with humans for too long, Adonis. Why won't you come back to Hades?"
When he did not answer her, she asked, "Do you find the Goddess of Love more pleasing than me?"
He answered by pressing his mouth against hers and kissing her. ()
When dawn broke, Adonis repeated his earlier sentiments and told Persephone that what they had done was wrong. Persephone left, disgusted, and did not return to the forest again.
---
Persephone had hoped that Adonis would seek her out, but he never did. Hekate brought her the news that Aphrodite had given birth to Adonis' daughter, and she went back to Hades. There she too lay in bed, suffering from fruitless labors. After she gave birth, she wept bitterly and sent Hekate away.
---
Hermes brought her the news while she was still in bed, but Persephone had known it even before the messenger told her: Adonis had been fatally injured in a hunting accident.
Persephone reminded Hermes that Adonis was given eternal life by Aphrodite.
"But not invulnerability," he said.
Persephone did not know what she could do. She did not heal things, nor could she grant life. She asked, "How is he?"
"He suffers greatly and wishes to see you," Hermes said.
After he left, she sat there in her bed with her blood-soaked sheets. Having mourned who she used to be, the Queen of the Dead began to remember who she had become. She was no longer Kore, bursting with all the fertility of unseeded, rich soil; she was Persephone, the Bringer of Death.
She downed her dark cloak and crossed the threshold of the living for the first time without the guidance of Hermes.
She found Adonis in Aphrodite's arms, with the lovely goddess weeping over him. He groaned in pain and moaned when he saw her. Persephone sat by him, and noticed that Aphrodite was unaware of her presence. Adonis called her by her holy name and compelled her to answer his prayers.
Persephone brushed back the locks in his eyes and wiped away his tears. She touched his face and gave him the only thing she was capable of giving: death.
-end-