I just love the myth of Persephone, i mean the real, original version of it, because it’s not like she got kidnapped, no, this bitch was la-de-da-ing in a meadow and she just happened to find an entrance to the Underworld and she was like “Imma check this out”. And she just wanders into the Underworld and discovers that hey this place ain’t too bad.

Meanwhile Hades is in the background “????? UM??? PRETTY GIRL??? WHY ARE YOU HERE?????? YOU AREN’T DEAD???” 

And Persephone (who was originally called Kore just a little fyi) just looked at him and said “I like it here. I’m staying.”

And Hades kinda just went with it, until Demeter started throwing the temper tantrum of the millenium upstairs and Zeus had to intervene because this shit was getting out of hand and its actually his job to be admistrator of justice. Which considering the shit he gets up to is kinda histerical but that’s another story there. 

And basically Persephone wasn’t a prisoner or kidnap victim at all she just really loved the Underworld and her (eventual) husband, and the Greeks feared her arguably more than her husband because Hades could be reasoned with but Persephone was the one laying the smack down on sinners, and really, who wouldn’t be at least a little scared of someone who’s name means something along the lines of “the destroyer”

Basically, Persephone is amazing and everbody needs to get on her level

i think the best part of that myth is that Zeus decided to change Kore’s name to Persephone (basically “the one who brings chaos”) only because she wanted to stay in the underworld and SHE WOULDN’T FUCKING LISTEN then Zeus, all-mighty king of the gods, kinda gives up and goes “fine, but you’re going to visit your mom” “also, I changed your name” “get rekt”

Also, if I’m not mistaken, Kore means “little girl” so imagine going from that to “chaos bringer”

I mean, going from little girl to chaos bringer sounds like a p solid deal to me, sign me up.

This may not be the version of the myth that’s commonly known and taught. But is is the original, from before it was altered to scare Greek/Roman girls into submission. Persephone was a badass bitch.

requested by anonymous:

RATING: UNRELIABLE

I have found no reliable source that suggests any ‘original’ myth where Persephone is not kidnapped. Some of the earliest mentions of Persephone reference her kidnapping.

For example, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (approx. 600 BC) reads:

Source: ’[…] She [Persephone] was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands to take hold of the pretty plaything. And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her. It happened on the Plain of Nysa. There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge. He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. The son of Kronos. The one known by many names. He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot, And drove away as she wept.’

There is also an early reference in Theogony, which was written around 700 BC.

Source: 'Also he came to the bed of all-nourishing Demeter, and she bore white-armed Persephone whom Aidoneus carried off from her mother; but wise Zeus gave her to him.’

Whilst it is true that Persephone is also known as Kore, her name wasn’t replaced by Zeus. The two terms are used depending on the context. Furthermore, the etymology of the name Persephone is unknown.

Source: 'The name Persephone (Homeric Persephoneia, Lyric Phersephonā), whose etymology is dark, presents variants as Persephassa or Phersephassa (Tragic), Pherrephatta, Perrephatta, or Pherrophatta, Perophatta, Persōphata (on Attic vases of the 5th century BCE). The term Persephone stresses her persona as Hades’ wife, whilst as Demeter’s daughter, she is often called Kore, “the Girl.”’

This is an absolutely wonderful article and if I could get anyone to read one thing this year, it would be this.

I’ve had many, many discussions about this topic on this blog before with people who have told me that the only true feminist retelling of, say, the Persephone myth is to remove her rape/trauma and make her the architect of her own descent into the Underworld. People have told me on myriad occasions that Persephone and Hades were in love, that she wasn’t raped in the ancient sources, that there are older versions in which she was the original goddess of the Underworld. It’s just not true, and I think we really need to reexamine our motives for feeling the need to remove Persephone’s rape from her narrative. Are we really unvictimising her, as Nikita Gill puts it here, or are we actually invalidating her trauma?

As Aimee Hinds much more eloquently puts it, we do survivors a disservice when we insist on removing them from the narrative on the basis that their experiences aren’t perceived as ‘empowering’ enough. If we tell survivors that the only true feminist retelling of a myth is one in which the woman always has complete agency, then the message we give is that to lose one’s agency is to become unfeminist, unempowered. To be raped, therefore, is to remove you from the conversation about feminism. Best not speak about it; best to only speak of women whose agency was never questioned. It’s a cleaner narrative, after all. An easier sell.

In my opinion, there’s nothing more empowering than seeing your story and experience represented as a victim / survivor. When I read about characters who have been traumatised and have survived, I am empowered in ways that I’m not when I read about characters who have always been in control, who could, perhaps, been said to have had an easy time of it. I don’t find it empowering to be told that my narrative isn’t ‘feminist enough’ because I was not the architect of my own descent into the Underworld.

I’m fortunate enough to have been consulted and mentioned by Aimee in this article as the author of Here the World Entire, which is a retelling of the Ovid version of the Medusa myth in which Medusa is the central character and narrator. The whole book is essentially an allegory for trauma, victim blaming and internalised misogyny. Not to draw focus away from this article, but it’s a book I wrote specifically to reflect the experiences of rape and trauma survivors. Medusa has sequestered herself away from the world because she views herself as untouchable, unspeakable; every time she attempts to connect with the world after her rape, the world rejects her because she is perceived as tarnished, monstrous. It was an empowering experience to write it and to read a story that spoke to my own survivorhood. I’ve been told the same thing by a few people (which is a commentary on the power of such representative narratives, not the quality of my own book!).

Again, to quote Aimee, who will always be more eloquent on this than me:

I take to mean that when we deny the existence of rape in the classical sources, we’re really not doing anything too different from the people who deny the existence of instances of rape today, even if our agenda is superficially different and could be described as feminist in intent. I completely agree with Aimee that this is easy, ineffective feminism. Ignoring rape or erasing it in narrative does not make it go away. Telling trauma survivors that their experiences are not empowering to read about does not prevent people from being traumatised.

We need to actually confront these topics, not push them to the side and hope that they’ll vanish. They won’t, and those of us who have experienced sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment or rape don’t deserve to be removed from the narrative and have the stories that make us feel heard cast aside in favour of tidier stories in which agency is taken for granted. We deserve to be empowered, too.

I was always a bit conflicted about that. Because it’s nice, isn’t it, it’s very nice to imagine what it would be like if things were different, if something did or did not happen. That’s fanfiction- and fanfiction is okay, it’s great- as long as you don’t claim it’s canon. So while I personally am not strongly condemning such retellings, I think it’s very important to remember the source material, and what happened in it. And it’s important to tell stories about it, new and old- however painful it may be. I don’t like reading these stories. It hurts. But it’s important that we have them.