Persephone was the queen of the Greek underworld and the daughter of Demeter. She was also called Kore, meaning Maiden. Her mythology joins marriage, death, agricultural loss, return, and the religious hope expressed in mystery cult.
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter
In the hymn, Hades seizes Persephone with the consent of Zeus while she gathers flowers. Demeter searches for her daughter and withdraws her support from the earth, causing a deadly failure of crops. Zeus eventually orders a return.
Persephone has eaten pomegranate seeds in the underworld, so she cannot remain above for the entire year. The poem explains a recurring division of time between her mother and Hades. It does not give one universal month-by-month calendar, and later seasonal summaries often add details not stated in the hymn.
Queen and worship
Persephone is not only a passive captive. Other Greek sources treat her as a formidable underworld queen who receives the dead, sends spirits, and participates in judgments or heroic journeys. Her authority is visible in stories of Heracles, Orpheus, and other visitors.
At Eleusis, Demeter and Persephone stood at the center of secret initiation rites. Because initiates were bound to secrecy, modern accounts cannot reconstruct the ceremonies in full from surviving evidence.