Persephone

The Dread Queen, bringer of destruction and the gentle touch of spring. She is the balance between life and death. Also called Kore (Κόρη) or Cora, Persephone (Περσεφόνη) is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld, who later took her into marriage. The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her cyclical return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, remain hidden for a period, sprout from the earth, and are harvested when fully grown.

In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a sheaf of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades.

Persephone, as a vegetation goddess, and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised the initiated a happy afterlife. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities. In Athens, the mysteries celebrated in the month of Anthesterion were dedicated to her. She is a goddess of marriage and childbirth in the region of the city of Epizephyrian Locris, in modern Calabria (southern Italy).

Her name has numerous historical variants. These include Persephassa (Περσεφάσσα) and Persephatta (Περσεφάττα). In Latin, her name is rendered Proserpina. She was identified by the Romans as the Italic goddess Libera, who was conflated with Proserpina. Myths similar to Persephone's descent and return to earth also appear in the cults of male gods, including Attis, Adonis, and Osiris, and in Minoan Crete.

The epithets of Persephone reveal her double function as chthonic and vegetation goddess. The surnames given to her by the poets refer to her role as queen of the lower world and the dead and to the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Her common name as a vegetation goddess is Kore. Günther Zuntz considers "Persephone" and "Kore" as distinct deities and writes that "no farmer prayed for corn to Persephone; no mourner thought of the dead as being with Kore." Ancient Greek writers were, however, not as consistent as Zuntz claims.

Goddess of spring and nature

Plutarch writes that Persephone was identified with the spring season, and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, her return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of immortality, and she was frequently represented on sarcophagi.
In the Orphic tradition, Persephone is said to be the daughter of Zeus and his mother Rhea, who became Demeter after her seduction by her son. The Orphic Persephone is said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus / Iacchus / Zagreus, and the little-attested Melinoe.

Queen of the underworld

In mythology and literature she is often called dread(ed) Persephone, and queen of the underworld, within which tradition it was forbidden to speak her name. This tradition comes from her conflation with the very old chthonic divinity Despoina ("[the] mistress"), whose real name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her mysteries. As goddess of death, she was also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx, the river that formed the boundary between Earth and the underworld.

In Homer's epics, she appears always together with Hades in the underworld, apparently sharing with Hades control over the dead. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus encounters the "dread Persephone" in Tartarus when he visits his dead mother. Odysseus sacrifices a ram to the chthonic goddess Persephone and the ghosts of the dead, who drink the blood of the sacrificed animal. In the reformulation of Greek mythology expressed in the Orphic Hymns, Dionysus and Melinoë are separately called children of Zeus and Persephone. Groves sacred to her stood at the western extremity of the earth on the frontiers of the lower world, which itself was called "house of Persephone".

Her central myth served as the context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to initiates.
As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men. The lake of Avernus, as an entrance to the infernal regions, was sacred to her.

Nestis

In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles, c490-430 BCE, describing a correspondence among four deities and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone:
"Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: Enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus, and Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears."

Of the four deities of Empedocles' elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo – Nestis is a euphemistic cult title[e] – for she was also the terrible Queen of the Dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was euphemistically named simply as Kore or "the Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld. Nestis means "the Fasting One" in ancient Greek.

Epithets - As a goddess of the underworld, Persephone was given euphemistically-friendly names and epithets. However, it is possible that some of them were the names of original goddesses:
- Aristi Cthonia, "the best chthonic".
- Chthonia (Χθονία, Khthónĭă); literally "She of the Earth", an epithet Persephone shares with her mother, Demeter.
- Despoina (dems-potnia, Δέσποινα, Déspoina) the "Mistress" or "Matriarch" (literally "the mistress of the house")
- Epaine (Ancient Greek: Ἐπαίνη, lit. "Dread" or the "Fearful One"); can also translate from Ancient Greek: ἔπαινος, meaning "Praise").
- Hagne (Ἁγνή, Hagnḗ), lit. "pure", originally a goddess of the springs in Messenia.
- Melindia or Melinoia (meli, "honey"), as the consort of Hades, in Hermione. (Compare Hecate, Melinoë)
- MalivinaAncient Greek: Μαλιβίνα, lit. "Sweet Friend", "Soft". An euphemistically-friendly epithet Persephone shares with Hecate.
- Melitodes (Μελιτώδης), "sweet as honey"
- Praxidike, the Orphic Hymn to Persephone identifies Praxidike as an epithet of Persephone: "Praxidike, subterranean queen. The Eumenides' source [mother], fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds."

As a vegetation goddess, she was called:

- Auxesia, as the goddess who grants growth and prosperity to the fields.
- Azesia, similar epithet of a growth and harvest nature
- Kore, "the maiden".
- Kore Soteira, "the Savior Maiden", in Megalopolis.
- Neotera, "the younger", in Eleusis.
- Kore of Demeter Hagne in the Homeric hymn.
- Kore Memagmeni, "the mixed daughter" (bread).
- Soteira, "the Savior", in Megalopolis.

Demeter and her daughter Persephone were usually called:
- The goddesses, often distinguished as "the older" and "the younger" in Eleusis.
- Demeters, in Rhodes and Sparta
- The thesmophoroi, "the legislators" in the Thesmophoria.
- Karpophoroi, "the bringers of fruit", in Tegea