These cults focused on understanding the secrets of death and the afterlife, making the queen of the underworld an important figure to them. Persephone featured prominently in the mysteries. The mystery cults of Greece, however, had a different version of Persephone’s legend. Demeter’s worry over her missing daughter, and eventual ability to bargain with her brothers for her, was used to explain the changing seasons and cycle of life and death in the Greek world. The abduction of Persephone is one of the most famous stories involving the goddess in Greek mythology. Persephone was dragged to the underworld unwillingly. So instead of telling his sister and their daughter what his plans were, Zeus arranged for Hades to kidnap the young goddess when she was away from her mother. Hades was the god of the underworld, and the marriage would mean that Persephone would be taken there to live with him. Zeus knew, however, that neither Demeter nor Persephone would be pleased with the match. He arranged to do so without her knowledge, promising her to his brother Hades. This was an unusual omission given that both of her parents were the subjects of detailed myths regarding their other affairs and children.Īs both her father and her king, Zeus had the right to give Persephone away in marriage. While other gods have detailed stories about their parentage and marriages, it seemed to be simply an accepted fact that Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. What is unusual about the story of Persephone is that there is no surviving myth to explain her birth. Zeus’s wife Hera was also his sister and their brother Poseidon had a child with Demeter as well. It was not unusual for the Olympians to have children with their close relatives. Her mother was his oldest sister, Demeter. Persephone and Zeus’s RelationshipĪccording to most versions of the story, Persephone was Zeus’s daughter. Together, the stories of Zeus and Persephone give historians clues as to how Greek mythology and religion developed from their Bronze Age origins. Zeus was responsible for arranging his daughter’s marriage, but is there more to their relationship?Īccording to some Orphic cults Persephone and Zeus had a much different relationship. Persephone and her mother may have objected to the marriage, but it made Persephone one of the most important goddesses in the pantheon. Such close intermarriage would have been forbidden to mortals, but among the gods the marriage of Persephone and Hades was seen as a way to elevate her status and give Hades a worthy queen. She then married their brother Hades in one of her most famous legends. Zeus was her father while her mother, Demeter, was his sister. In the myths of the goddess Persephone, she is simultaneously Zeus’s daughter, niece, and sister-in-law.
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