Hades and Persephone | Victoria Olt

2020

Handmade watercolor on paper.

18 x 24 in
46 x 61 cm + frame included for free in shipments within Estonia

} Hades and Persephone {

Who should Hades, the King of Underworld, want for his wife but Persephone, the Goddess of spring and fertility? Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (Goddess of harvest and fertility) and one day as she was picking some flowers, the ground beneath her feet opened up and Hades, in a golden chariot, snatched her up and took her to the underworld to make her his wife and queen.

Once Helios told Demeter what had happened, she became sad and distraught, neglecting all her duties and began to wander around aimlessly. The lands became barren and famine swept across the world, so that even the Gods became alarmed. So much so that Zeus himself sent Hermes to take Persephone back to her mother Demeter.

In her time in the Underworld, Persephone had tasted a single seed of pomegranate, which meant that by the laws of the Underworld, she would have to remain there. So once again, Zeus had to intervene and he proposed that Persephone be allowed to spend 2/3 of the year with her mother and the remainder with her husband in the Underworld. So for that 1/3 of the year that Persephone is away from the Underworld, the world becomes cold and barren from Demeter's grief of missing her daughter.