Sorry for bothering you, I just wanted to ask if you've seen that post about the 'original version of Persephone's kidnapping' myth going around, where she doesn't actually get kidnapped but just sort of... wanders into the underworld? Is that even a little accurate as far as you know or another made-up tumblr retelling?
I have actually added this to the original post, but obviously there are about 780 versions of that post floating around at this point and nearly all of them are like âomg iâm so glad that this 100% unverified post about persephone proves that everyone has been wrong about the myth for the past hundreds of years⊠thank god for no sources <3âČÂ
But anyway, here are my thoughts on the matter. It would probably help to have the original post open at the same time, as this response does make some close references to it:Â
A disclaimer, first of all: any post that says THIS IS THE ORIGINAL MYTH is going to be wank, because we donât know what the original myth was - we only have the first written sources, but without a time machine thereâs just no way of finding out how the myth developed in an oral tradition. So already, we can debunk about 80% of that post. Groovy.
The first source we have for Persephone being carried away is in Hesiodâs Theogony, written in the 8th or 7th century BC. We also have the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, written in the 7th or 6th century BC, which is explicitly about her being taken away by Hades.
Hesiod is one of the oldest Greek sources that we have, roughly contemporaneous with Homer. We donât have any earlier sources than this which say âhey, Persephone went to Hades because she thought it would be coolâ. A lot of people have theorised that this could have been an original, or at least an earlier tradition, but itâs about 60% wishful thinking, 20% misinterpreting evidence (i.e. assuming that Persephone and Demeter used to be aspects of a great mother goddess, which they werenât) and about 20% conjecture based on actual rational thought (i.e. the fact that the oldest written source we have is about an abduction doesnât mean that it is the original source; there could be older non-extant written sources or just oral tales which pre-dated writing). Itâs not fact.
Itâs true that Homer himself never explicitly says that Persephone was abducted - he just describes her as Hadesâ wife - but he also doesnât say that she wasnât abducted; it could well be that the myth of her abduction was so well known that he had no need to recount it.
It is true that Persephoneâs name was Kore, which means âmaidenâ; however, this could be an epithet because she was unmarried. Itâs also theorised that it was a euphemism of sorts for when people didnât want to name Persephone outright; again, this is a theory. Lots of gods had epithets - basically cooler names which underlined some of their core attributes, e.g. Apollo = Loxias, which highlights Apolloâs powers of prophecy. Unlike the post claims, the name âPersephoneâ does not definitively mean death / destroyer; the etymology is unknown. The âdeath / destroyerâ theory is just one of many, and others are based around ideas of harvest and grain.
The reason Zeus got involved wasnât just because he was tasked with sorting out justice - it was because he had told Hades âhey, you want a wife? Cool! Abduct my daughter, Persephone. Her mum totally wonât mind,â and then when Persephoneâs mother did mind, Zeus was like âI fucked up real bad, I should sort this shit out.â In Ancient Greece, women didnât have to consent in the same way as we do now. Abduction marriages were actually illegal (or at least very very naughty) but the brideâs consent basically took the form of her father saying âyouâll marry this dude, right? Yeah, cool. Sheâll marry you, dude.â Here, Zeus gives Persephoneâs consent to Hades by telling Hades that he can marry her - this is why technically she wasnât exactly abducted, because the necessary consent - her fatherâs - was given. HOWEVER, letâs not get into Greek law here. She was abducted by our standards.
It is also true that Persephone became a very feared goddess and basically had a great time in the Underworld. She wasnât exactly more terrible than Hades, though; there are certain myths (e.g. Sisyphus and Orpheus) where sheâs the one who says âHades, babe, shall we give this guy a chance to make his way out of the Underworld alive?â HOWEVER, she did usually do this with the implementation of specific terms, meaning that she had a level of control in proceedings which a lot of other wife goddesses didnât have over their respective spousesâ spheres. Most mythological canons also give her and Hades a very healthy and monogamous relationship (with the exception of Orphism, which is a bit more iffy on that front) so, disregarding the abduction part of her myth, their marriage was really relatively healthy, even by modern standards. Also, Persephone did not âlay the smack down on sinnersâ, as quoted in the original post - the whole idea of sinners is basically a Christian concept. The Underworld was not Hell. It wasnât a place for bad people. It was just where the dead went. Tartarus was the place where the really bad guys went to be tortured and shit, and is more indicative of Christian notions of Hell. People werenât punished in the Underworld. They just went there.
I love the idea of Persephone as a consenting wife of Hades. I am a fan of modern reinterpretations in which she chooses to eat the pomegranate seeds willingly, or where she falls in love with Hades and goes to the Underworld of her own accord. However, these are modern interpretations, based on modern gender politics and ideas of reclamation and representation. I will forever fight for peopleâs right to reinterpret myths however they like, but this whole idea of the âoriginal mythâ of Persephone being devoid of any misogynistic undertones really needs to die.Â
I think it also speaks to a worrying argument that in order to empower Persephone, some people need to remove her trauma. Why canât Persephone be a terrible dread queen of the Underworld and a survivor? Why should her experiences need to be erased in order to make her into a strong woman? If you ask me, sheâs already stronger than Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnson. I donât think that the modern need to reframe Persephone as architect of her own descent into the Underworld is necessarily as progressive as others think it is. I think it sends the message that a strong woman always has agency, and I actually think that a better message to send would be that itâs totally possible to lose your agency and still retain your strength, because you define yourself through your own actions, not what is done to you.
tl;dr any post that makes a broad sweeping claim like âhey this greek myth was originally like this and u r all wrongâ without any sources is what my tutor would call âspeciousâ and what I call âbollocksâ.
