Persephone

and if even in that other life the good are rewarded, mayst thou have thy share therein and take thy seat by Hades’ bride!

For nevermore will I touch the lyre nor lift my soul in song to the Libyan flute, for thou hast taken with thee all my joy in life. But in my bed thy figure shall be laid full length, by cunning artists fashioned;

But should I fail to find my prey and he come not to the clotted blood, I will go to the sunless home of those beneath the earth, to Persephone and her king, and make to them my prayer, sure that I shall bring Alcestis up again, to place her in the hands of him, my host, who welcomed me to his house nor drove me thence, though fortune smote him hard, but this his noble spirit strove to hide out of regard for me.

grief for grief and mournful chant for chant, may Persephone send choirs of death in harmony with my lamentation, so that she may receive as thanks from me, in addition to my tears, a paean for the departed dead beneath her gloomy roof.

When the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, searching for the treacherous rape of her daughter, she crossed the snow-capped heights of the nymphs of Mount Ida;

Once with swift foot the mountain mother of the gods rushed through the wooded glen, and the river’s streams and the deep-thundering sea wave, yearning for her lost daughter, whose name may not be spoken.

Rise, hapless one, from the sacred floor of Persephone;

may fortune aid me in my headlong leap from this rock in honour’s cause, down into the fire below, to mix my ashes in the ruddy blaze with my husband’s, to lay me side by side with him, there in the couch of Persephone;

You must go to the house of Hades and of dread Persephone to consult the ghost [ psukhê] of the blind Theban seer [ mantis] Teiresias whose mind [ phrenes] is still in place within him.

On this, many dead men's ghosts [ psukhai] will come to you, and you must tell your men to skin the two sheep that you have just killed, and offer them as a burnt sacrifice with prayers to Hades and to Persephone.

does Persephone want to lay a still further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom only?

Tell them to remember Syracuse and Ortygia, which Hieron rules with his pure scepter and with good counsels, while he attends on the worship of Demeter of the red feet, and on the festival of her daughter with her white horses, and on the might of Aetnaean Zeus.

Now go, Echo, to the dark-walled home of Persephone and bring the glorious message to his father;

Such things the Pythagoreans too hinted at, allegorizing the dogs of Persephone as the planets, and the sea as the tear of Cronos.

It happened that we were turning back from the temple of Persephonê, and on our walk were again about opposite the Leocorion when we met them.

Now the zeal of the rival disputants was almost equal, until that shifty, smooth-mouthed liar, the son of Laertes, whose tongue is always at the service of the mob, persuaded the army not to put aside the best of all the Danaids for want of a servant-maid’s sacrifice, nor have it said by any of the dead that stand beside Persephone that the Danaids have left the plains of Troy without gratitude fo …

they bid me sacrifice to Demeter’s daughter some maiden from a noble father sprung.

I dare not say harsh words of her to whom thou art devoted, the goddess-daughter of Demeter.

No, I do not see Sisyphus with his stone, or Pluto, or his queen, Demeter’s child.

I know the god will pardon me,—in my arms I hold thee, whom I never hoped to find, for I thought thy home was in that nether world, among the ghosts with Queen Persephone.

these are the portion of Persephone, fair young goddess of the nether world.

and the goddesses of twofold name, Persephone and the kindly goddess Demeter the queen of all, Earth the nurse of all, won it for themselves;

To set this one soul free.

Maid of Demeter, Life of fruits and corn,

Of Death’s eternal bride, the heavenly-born

There, in front, stand the echoing halls of the god of the lower-world, strong Hades, and of awful Persephone.

Also he came to the bed of all-nourishing Demeter, and she bore white-armed Persephone whom Aidoneus carried off from her mother;

He prayed that no son of mine might ever sit upon knees - and the gods, Zeus of the world below and awful Persephone, fulfilled his curse.

His mother, grieving for the death of her brother, prayed the gods, and beat the earth with her hands, calling upon Hades and on awful Persephone;

Then beautiful Persephone answered her thus:

When he said this, wise Persephone was filled with joy and hastily sprang up for gladness.

-->“Go now, Persephone, to your dark-robed mother, go, and feel kindly in your heart towards me:

So grateful was Theseus to Peirithos, his partner in the abduction, that when Peirithos wished to woo Persephon, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and summoned him to the descent into Hades to obtain her, when Theseus found that he could not by his warnings dissuade his friend, although the danger was manifest he nevertheless accompanied him, for he was of opinion that he owed this debt of gratitu …

and they say she even goes down to Hades, to buy back Adonis from Persephone.

Achilles, champion of the sons of Aeacus, showed them the way to the house of Persephone, and thus brought fame to Aegina and to his race.

Sow some splendor on the island, which Zeus the lord of Olympus gave to Persephone;

I beseech you, splendor-loving city, most beautiful on earth, home of Persephone;

Afterwards we turned away to enter the maiden’s stoney-bedded bridal chamber, the caverned mansion of Hades’ bride.

Tomb, bridal-chamber, deep-dug eternal prison where I go to find my own, whom in the greatest numbers destruction has seized and Persephone has welcomed among the dead!

O House of Hades and Persephone!