Hades & Persephone: The Satisfaction of Contradiction

Without fire and blackness and death, the forest does not experience resurrection. Without death, life is underappreciated. Without life, death is hopeless. 

Who are humans to say that a pairing of opposites cannot provide the most satisfaction on both sides? It makes sense to us that the god of the dead might well pine for the goddess of fresh growth. But it makes sense to me that the daughter of life might well pine for the lord of death.

Stranger things have happened. 

In the beginning when the world was new

And the stars hadn’t found a place to rest,

Something happened in the night and the blue -

A god with dark hair and fine hands found a nest.

The mortal men sent him soul - company

So he flooded his halls to keep family out,

And put his three-headed dog within the debris

And ignored their laughs and ignored their shouts.

Because he preferred to live alone.

He ignored the songs from up above,

And the sparkling stories of sun and bone,

And the tales he heard from the dead, of love.

For he didn’t care for the things of men

And he didn’t care for the sun that shone –

And he didn’t care for field or fen,

Because he preferred to live alone.

He collected jewels and collected gold,

He created a world red and heavy with wealth;

Lord both of the dead and of riches untold,

And he grew in his power and grew in his stealth. 

His riches hung glowing on darkening walls;

Carved into images seeming to float,

But he couldn’t forget, and he seemed to recall

That gems belonged in the curve of a throat. 

He called on the dead to amuse him instead,

And distract from what he desired, unseen.

But the souls had mischief in their festering heads,

And they told tales of growth and of girls wearing green.

Even while he was sleeping they whispered of spring,

In an unending song singing “ferns!” singing “sunny!”

And when he demanded names, as their king,

They laughed in his face and answered “Persephone!” 

Hades created a girl in his head – oh she wept

Tears of sunshine, he thought, and her laugh like a flower.

When up from the darkness to see her he crept,

She was ten times more beautiful, there in her bower. 

No matter what humans say – he didn’t plan it

But the masculine urge overcame common fright

Hell’s loneliness triumphed: “My lands are unlit –

Surely my brothers won’t grudge me this light.” 

They won’t tell you his gentleness, tell you his yearning

As the terror of men fell before a green goddess

And poured out his heart like ashes; discerning

That she knew it was honor to hear him confess. 

Persephone’s soft heart had a black band of steel

Unbending, unbreaking, and full of desire

To be unafraid in the dark and to see the unreal

And she intuited beauty in all Hades’ heart-fire. 

Because she was woman, she let down her tears,

In a manner appealing, assured he could see

That her grief was attractive, and came to his ears-

She drove him to madness, begging to be free. 

He said “All my riches are yours for the taking,

The treasures of myth, and of gods, and of kings,

You may wear them in sleeping and wear them in waking,

The price of an empire you’ll have in your ring.”

She knew she was his, and she knew he was captured

So she turned toward his face from her place on the throne,

And considered his form, and she smiled; enraptured

That the god of the dead could look sad and alone. 

Men say Hades tricked her, daughter of seed

But women say she knew pomegranates of old,

And gazed in his eyes as she partook of his meat

She was wearing his love and wearing his gold. 

In conclusion, the goddess of spring - the daughter of growing things, knew what she was doing when she accepted fruit from Hades' hand.