noisymouse:skinnybitchwitch:theisiscult:ayahalloway:valiantparadox:Hades and Persephone, 2015Hades h
noisymouse:skinnybitchwitch:theisiscult:ayahalloway:valiantparadox:Hades and Persephone, 2015Hades has always been one of the chillest of the Greco-Roman gods and my all-time favorite, but of course his most famous myth is the unfortunate ‘Rape of Persephone’. I thought this was quite uncharacteristic, seeing that in all his other myths he’s really cool about a lot of shit, so I asked one of my professors about it and she laid down some knowledge. Beginning with the name, rape was actually a poor translation of the latin verb rapére (to snatch or to take) meaning that the myth is actually ‘the snatching of persephone’. Still pretty bad but it gets a bit better. Between falling madly in love with Persephone and abducting her, Hades went to her father, Zeus, and asked to marry her. Since women didn’t count in ancient Greece, Persephone and her mother, Demeter, didn’t have any say in this and Zeus was probably like “oh wow I forgot I had that daughter but yeah sure bro go for it” and so Hades did. Similar to the way Greek grooms picked up their brides, Hades shows up literally out of the earth and says “hey babe I’m your husband now let’s go to my house.” I’m not saying this is good I mean it’s still really fucked up but I hope it explains some things.Further on, Hades is still pretty chill husband (for antiquity). I mean even though he’s besotted with her, he lets Persephone go home for nearly half a year and I can see them being a pretty great arranged marriage. This has been a psa.Also, according to several myths, Hades went out of his way to have plants brought down just for her. He bent over backwards and twisted sideways to make her happy. Even promising her equal say in everything that happened in the underworld (which is a Big Freakin’ Deal in ancient Greece). Some myths even say that Persephone intentionally made Hades give her all sorts of rights a woman normally wouldn’t have. He may have been the ‘Crooked One’, but she was known as the ‘Iron Queen’- girl was a goddess of the Underworld just as much as Springtime by the time she was done with Hades. (Also known as the goddess of ‘Duality in some cases.) It was forbidden to call on Persephone because she was one lady you did not want to cross.And they were the couple that cheated the least. Like, in the old myths, there were /maybe/ five myths of cheating? Which says a whole hell of a lot when compared to Zeus, or Poseidon. ( Probably the only god that cheated less than those two was Hera.)“In fact, Plato says that Hades is so named because he is a beneficent and gentle god towards those who have come to abide with him.” – PlutarchI don’t know nearly as much about mythology as I’d love to so I don’t know if this is all true but gosh I love the thought that it is.Everything discussed here is more or less true!The oldest telling of the Hades and Persephone story is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. It was not called “the rape of Persephone”, and yes, the way it’s come to be called that is absolutely because of a misunderstanding of the way “rape” was supposed to be “rapt”, or, carried away. The emphasis was put on “rape” much later, by romantic-era (I think?) jerks who found it titillating, so yeah, now you have all these suggestive classical paintings and sculptures. CLASSICAL. Not Greek.Because in the context of Ancient Greece, Hades and Persephone are pretty remarkable. In most of ancient Greece, women were property with very little rights of their own. Marriages were conducted by going to the girl’s father to ask for permission (because a daughter is the property of the father), and it really didn’t matter if she agreed or not. Hades abduction seems pretty reprehensible to us today, but it really was pretty typical for a marriage agreement at the time. The Hymn to Demeter seems to suggest that the ultimate lesson people were supposed to take from it was that Zeus didn’t consult with Demeter before he agreed to the marriage. In the work, Hermes tells Demeter, don’t be upset with Hades, he’s a good guy and a good husband. You should be upset with Zeus.Saying that the story of Hades and Persehone is a terrible story because she was abducted is a bit like saying no one should like Wuthering Heights, because in Wuthering Heights you have cousins getting married. Cousins getting married! Gross! Incest! Why would anyone like this book! Everyone who likes this book is glorifying incest! But that’s not what we do. We are able to read this book and say, this is something that is not acceptable in today’s society, but we understand that there wasn’t the same taboo at the time. So you have to be able to look at something and understand it in its cultural, historical context. Otherwise there is a great bulk of good work that you will be throwing out.And then, what happened to Persephone after she married Hades? She was given equal power and position to him. You really have to understand how amazing that is in a culture where women belong to their male relatives. Persephone was not some reluctant, wilting waif imprisoned in the Underworld. She was powerful. Despite what you’ve seen in movies, Hades was not an evil villain to the Greeks. He was called the stern judge. He was kind of a grim stick-in-the-mud, but he was fair. Persephone? The Greeks were afraid of her! They called her nice, flattering names to try and please her, because you DID NOT WANT TO PISS OFF PERSEPHONE.It’s absolutely true that Hades and Persephone were among the most, if not THE MOST, faithful couple in the Greek pantheon. Zeus and Poseidon each have a huge list of lovers they each took. Hades? I believe there are only two other women associated with him, and these stories were both added much much later, and not considered by some to part of the classic Greek canon anyway. (it’s important to remember that mythologies are not static, they change over time, stories get added and changed, and stories can also vary from region to region. The story with Minthe, for instance, is a late Roman addition.)So I dunno. Sorry for the huge babble. It’s just that the story of Hades and Persephone is one of my favourites, and I see it as a pretty inspirational story, a girl going from being an unimportant flower goddess, to a powerful cthonic queen in charge of her own destiny. It kind of makes me grumpy when I see people reduce it to some titillating story that glorifies rape and no one should like it, or when Hades gets characterized as a villain. (seriously. Haven’t these guys read about the shit Zeus has done??!!??) Basically Hades is a big huge grumpy dork who just sits in the Underworld and does his work, with his amazing wife who is terrifying and periodically deals out vengeful punishments to douchebags like Sisyphus, and the both of them are constantly rolling their eyes at all the stupid crap that the Olympian gods are getting up to.Aaaaaand if anyone read all the way to the bottom of this rambling post, and wants to know more, I would suggest you guys look up the fabulous kata-chthonia. She is way more knowledgeable about this than me, way more articulate, and she has written a retelling of the Hades and Persephone story that she is getting published as a novel, I highly recommend it. (FYI though it’s NSFW) Like seriously. Go look her up, she is amazing. -- source link