Demeter and Persephone
This story is one of very early Greek mythology. It comes from the first Homeric hymns, dating from the beginning of the 7th century BC to the beginning of the eighth. The original has marks of the simplicity and love of beauty found in that time.
Persephone, the maiden of spring, was the only daughter of the Goddess of Corn, Demeter. One day, Hades arose through a crevice in the earth and kidnapped Persephone while she was away from her companions. He took her away, crying, to his realm in the underworld. The mountains and sea echoed her sobs and her mother, hearing this, travelled all across the world in search of her daughter. No one would tell her the truth about where her daughter was. After nine days, she went to the Sun who finally told her the story: her daughter was among the dead in the underworld.
Grieving even more now, Demeter left Olympus and went to earth, disguised so no one knew her. She came to Eleusis and sat by a well, looking like old woman. Four sisters who were coming to draw water from this well asked her why she sat there. The divinity-in-disguise answered that she had run away from a band of pirates who were planning on selling her as a slave and that, since she was in a strange place, there was no one to help her. The girls said that they hoped she would come to their home and begged her to wait while they asked their mother. Metaneira, the mother, told them to hurry back and invite the woman to come stay with them. Demeter followed them and, as she crossed the threshold of their house, a divine radiance glowed and filled Metaneira with awe as she sat with her very young son, Demophoön.
When offered sweet wine, the goddess declined and instead asked for barley water flavored with mint, which was the draught that cooled the reapers at harvest time and the sacred drink given to worshipers at Eleusis. Then she took the infant boy and held him to her bosom and Metaneira was glad. Demophoön grew like a god because Demeter nursed him daily, feeding him sweet ambrosia. At night she would place him in the heart of the fire so that he would have immortal youth.
Metaneira grew uneasy though. One night she watched and as the goddess laid the boy in the fire, she screamed in terror. Angered by this, Demeter cast the boy on the ground. She had meant to keep him from ever growing to old age or dying, but this was not to be. But, since the boy had slept in her arms, he would have great honor throughout his life.
The great deity then showed herself in her true form. Beauty flew about her and sweet frangrance filled the air. The home was filled with brightness. She told the stunned women that she was Demeter and in order to win back her favor, they must build a temple near the town in her honor.
Then she left them and Metaneira fell trembling to the earth. She told her husband, Celeus what the goddess had said and he immediately called the people together and told them her command. Willingly, they built her a great temple and she came to it. Apart from the other gods on Olympus, she sat wasting away in sorrow for her daughter.
That was the most cruel year for men. Nothing grew, crops died out, and the oxen plowed the fields to no avail. It came to the point where the entire human race would die of famine if nothing was done. Zeus saw this, and one after another, sent all of the gods down from Olympus to try to bring her back. But it was useless; Demeter would not let the earth grow until she had her daughter. Realizing this, Zeus sent Hermes to his brother in the underworld and asked him to let his new bride go back to her mother.
Hermes found the two sitting side by side, Persephone shrinking away in longing for her mother. She wished to go, and at the messenger's words, she became even more eager. Hades knew that he had to obey Zeus so he bid farewell to his wife and told her to think of him without grief as he was one of the most powerful among the gods. He also made her eat one pomegranite seed before she left, knowing that when she did this, she would have to return to him sometime.
When Hermes drove Persephone to Demeter's temple, she rushed out to her daughter and they embraced tightly. All day they talked of what had happened to them both and Demeter grieved when she heard of the pomigranite seed, fearing she could not keep her daughter with her.
Then Zeus sent his own mother, Rhea to speak to Demeter. She came swiftly down from Olympus to the barren, brown earth and, in the doorway, spoke this message, "Come, my daughter, for Zeus, far-seeing, loud-thundering, bids you. Come once again to the halls of the gods where you shall have honor, where you will have your desire, your daughter, to comfort your sorrow as each year is accomplished and bitter winter is ended. For a third of a year only will the kingdom of darkness hold her. For the rest, you and the happy immortals will keep her. Peace be with you. Give men back the life which only you can give."
Demeter did not refuse, although it was poor comfort to lose Persephone for four months a year. But she was kind and she was very sorry for the suffering which she had brought about. She once again made the fields green and the earth bright with flowers. She went to the princes of Eleusis, who had built her temple and picked one to be her ambassador to men. Through him, they learned how to sow corn and her sacred rights in ceremony which cannot be repeated.