According to Greek Mythology, Persephone, the queen of the underworld, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of harvest and fertility. She was also called Kore, which means "maiden" and grew up to be a lovely girl attracting the attention of many gods. However, Demeter had an obsessed love for her only daughter and kept all men away from her.
The most persisting suitor of Persephone was Hades, the god of the Underworld. He was a hard, middle-aged man, living in the dark, among the shadows of the Dead. But his heart softened when he saw Persephone and was amazed by his youth, beauty and freshness. When he asked Demeter to marry her daughter, Demeter got furious and said there wasn't the slightest chance for that to happen.
Hades was heart-broken and decided to get Persephone no matter what. One day, while the young girl was playing and picking flowers along with her friends in a valley, she beheld the most enchanting narcissus she had ever seen. As she stooped down to pick the flower, the earth beneath her feet suddenly cleaved open and through the gap Hades himself came out on his chariot with black horses.
Hades grabbed the lovely maiden before she could scream for help and descended into his underworld kingdom while the gap in the earth closed after them. The other girls had not seen anything because everything happened very quickly. They didn't have a clue for the sudden disappearance of Persephone. The whole incident, however, had been witnessed by Zeus, father of the maiden and brother of the abductor, as well as by Helios, god of the Sun.
Zeus decided to keep silent about the whole thing to prevent a fight with his brother while Helios wisely thought it better not to get involved in anything that didn't concern him. A distraught and heartbroken Demeter wandered the earth looking for her daughter until her good friend Hecate, goddess of wilderness and childbirth, advised her to seek for the help of Helios, the all-seeing Sun god, in order to find her daughter.
Helios felt sorry for Demeter, who was crying and pleading him to help her. Thus she revealed her that Persephone had been kidnapped by Hades.
When she heard that, Demeter got angry and wanted to take revenge but Helios suggested that it was not such a bad thing for Persephone to be the wife of Hades and queen of the dead. Demeter, however, could not let it gone. She was furious at this insult and deeply believed that Hades, who after all had only dead people for company, was not the right husband for her sweet daughter.
She also got angry at Zeus for not having revealed this to her. To punish gods and to grief, Demeter decided to take a long and indefinite leave from her duties as the goddess of harvest and fertility, with devastating consequences. The earth began to dry up,harvests failed, plants lost their fruitfulness, animals were dying for lack of food and famine spread to the whole earth, resulting in untold misery. The cries of the people who were suffering reached Olympus and the divine ears of Zeus.
The Pentelic marble, bronze, gold, and ivory are the basic media used in this construction. In many societies, ancient and modern, religion has played an important role in shaping people to pursue their destiny.
In books two and four of the Aeneid by Virgil, the Trojans and Aeneas do exactly the same. Through the epic of book II , Aeneas goes on to explaining the war between the Trojans and the Greeks. Book IV focuses on Queen Dido and her deep love for Aeneas and the importance of god 's word to Aeneas, which is problematic for for Dido. Virgil proves how in the Roman culture the Romans put god in front of themselves and what they believe.
The aspect of a helper gives listeners and followers of the myth a sense of comradery and joining of forces with the hero. It validates what the hero stands by when people support the same thing. Especially in ancient times, it made the gods seem as though they cared about what went on in everyday life. It boosted morale and admiration for the gods that created. As his tutor, pushing these views upon a young, impressionable Alexander would have been inconceivable.
I have one more example before you speak, son, and that is the trip to Siwah. I believe Alexander visited the temple not only to outdo his predecessors but to create an elaborate account of his divine origins It seems that after this visit he began to associate himself with the Egyptian god Ammon, even goes as far as claiming to be a son of his.
Ancient polytheistic societies incorporated religious ideas which involved a plethora of gods and goddesses, of which many were linked to certain human appeals or sacrifices. As noted in both Egyptian and Babylonian. General Ancient Greek religious beliefs affected Ancient Greek hospitality, order, and submission to the gods and goddesses.
The Ancient Greeks often sent prayers to the gods. They sacrificed many things to them. They worshipped them in their everyday lives "Greek Religion" 3. The Ancient Greeks also believed in destiny. The ancient Greeks, like many ancient cultures, believed in multiple gods.
The Gods had supernatural powers and strengths. Myths about these Gods helped explain things about Greek life, These myths were important because they explained why the Greeks did things in a certain way and what was important to them. The myth of Persephone and Hades was culturally significant because it helped explained the cycle of the changing seasons and also the importance of one of their religious rituals.
But Demeter will not let go of her fury at the loss of her daughter. Zeus is forced to relent and sends the messenger Hermes to the Underworld to get the girl back. But, just as she is going, Hades prevails on her to eat the seed of a pomegranate to prevent her from staying with her mother above the earth all her days.
Persephone is therefore forced to spend one-third of each year under the earth with Hades, and two-thirds with her mother and the community of gods on Mount Olympus.
Whereas she might have expected an immortal existence with her mother on Olympus, Persephone becomes the central figure in a new cycle of life and death.
She is both queen of the Underworld, as wife of Hades, and associated with the new life that rises with the spring. Death and life are no longer mutually exclusive, but co-exist in both the upper and lower worlds. There is life in death, and death in life. The Demeter Hymn contains the foundation myth of the Eleusinian Mysteries - renowned religious rites which took place at Eleusis, near to Athens. Initiation into the Mysteries held out the prospect of making death less threatening.
The establishment of Persephone as a feminine presence in the Underworld, as described in the Hymn, corresponds to the notion that death is not as terrifying as it could have been had Hades alone been present as ruler in the world of the dead. Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendor Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender Turn your face away from the garish light of day Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light And listen to the music of the night.
The plea of Hades to Persephone is quite different in the Hymn, but the desperate loneliness of the two males in their dark realms is something that they have in common.
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