I had a peaceful childhood. I did, I can't say otherwise. There was a time when I resented the word: peaceful had much too positive a connotation. I rather used words like mild or stale. I didn't know what I was talking about, clearly.
I used to dream of lands I'd never seen and joke about things I'd never felt. My mother brought me up far from Olympus and its squabbles, you see. I knew nothing of the world, be it divine or mortal.
Aphrodite once told me I had a strange sort of beauty. I remember mother had been displeased but I hadn't. All gods were beautiful as far as I could tell. How could one expect ordinary beauty to have any value amongst deities? If my beauty was strange, then it was something. If my beauty was strange, then I was someone.
-Why am I here, mother? - I'd asked her once while we made things grow out of bear fields.
-You're helping me, Kore. - She'd replied, quite intent upon her work.
-No, why do I exist?
-You're here to help me, Kore.- Demeter repeated, blinking at my untoward question, as if she didn't understand why I should ask it.
The answer hadn't satisfied me. It seemed like a very poor purpose to a fanciful heart, like mine. I'd tried my father next, when he came to visit me in my little island.
-Who am I, father?
-You are Spring, my sweet. - The king of the gods had answered while fuddling my copper curls.
I hadn't liked that very much either. It didn't feel important enough: there were no humans who worshipped me, no mortal begged me for anything, there was no temple built in my honor and no city consecrated to me. And what is a god without that?
I ran across fields and meadows and played with my dryads and nymphs. To be Springapparently meant being careless and idle for as long as possible, because that was all my mother had me do. Oh, how I envied other gods who were free to roam earth, sea and sky as they pleased. Even the humans could wander around the corners of their shortened world.
Marriage, I'd thought, would bring a favorable change to my conditions. Hermes, Ares, Apollo, and Hephaestus all came wooing soon after I reached maidenhood. Yes! My "strange" beauty stirred even the hearts of proud Apollo and conflict-infatuated Ares. But mother rejected them. Nobody was good enough for me, she said. They all found consolation amongst others and I was left alone, on my island. Always on my island.
The word normalcy had a very bitter taste on my mouth since all the glades, dryads and oceanids did nothing to rid time from its awful insipidity. Change found me, as one might guess, playing amongst grass and nymphs.
Acaste had been the last to leave me to my wanderings. All of them had been giggling enough to drive the most patient of men out of his wits. I don't know what the stories say, but I was the one to send them away.
I remember it all quite well: divine memories don't wane. I had been alone with my flowers and suddenly there'd been an ornate bracelet lying on the ground. It was the most beautiful I'd ever seen. It seemed almost too precious to be touched.
I leaned down to grab it and as soon as I looked up I saw a man standing in front of me. He was taller than my father and wore long dark robes. His face was not without beauty but it was of a melancholic sort. I clutched the bracelet in my hand in sudden fear. I recognized him.
-Why are you here? - I asked looking around for my ladies-in-waiting.
-I have come for you. - Hades replied tranquilly.
-But I cannot die! - I yelped with idiotic panic.
-And I am not death. - He replied with a throaty chuckle.
I blushed a little but looked at him defiantly.
-Then why have you come for me?
-I have come for you because I wanted to. – The king of the Underworld replied laconically. I backed away.
-What if I do not wish to go?
-You have accepted my wedding gift, Persephone. - He motioned towards the bracelet dangling from my arm. I widened my eyes and let go of it. He picked it up and secured it around my wrist. I stared at him with stupefied astonishment. I turned to run.
He secured his arms around my waist in less than a second and carried me to a great black chariot that awaited him. The earth closed up above us as he motioned his horses to go, and we sunk deep under the ground.
We traveled without the sun for some time before reaching the river Styx. I was sobbing by then.
-Why do you cry, my love? - Lord Hades asked as we were ferried across the river. He dried my tears almost tenderly.
-Why should I not cry? - I snapped turning my face away from him.
-I'm in love with you Persephone.
-No, you're not. - I said curling up and hiding my face in my knees. He was silent for the remainder of the journey.
I spent weeks and weeks in the Underworld, wilting away as I thought. Lord Hades treated me well, to be fair, but I missed home too much to relish in the novelties of marital life.
My mother, I was told, had torn the world apart searching for me. She punished my faithful nymphs for losing sight of me and punished the human world for lack of anything else to loosen her rage upon. I wept for her injured heart.
-Demeter wants you back desperately, Persephone. - My husband told me mournfully one evening.
- Why did you kidnap me? - I asked him, turning my eyes upon his pale face. - Why didn't you woo me properly? Like everyone else.
-I'm not everyone else. - Hades said with a frown. But it melted as he turned his look down, pensively. – My sister is a stubborn woman; she would've never given you up.
-She won't give me up now. - I told him almost haughtily. He sighed.
- You're not her Spring anymore Persephone. You're a Queen now. My queen.
-I think I am Spring, now more than ever.
Things got ugly soon enough: nothing grew in the human world and the human race wilted like I could not. My father grew desperate and all compassionate gods suffered along with their wards. Yet I remained in the Underworld.
The ever-sameness of the dark world made me realize how much I'd underappreciated mine. I could've let Hades love me but I didn't. I was angry at my abductor and wouldn't let him be the consolation for a despair he'd created.
I longed more than once for Thanatos to take my immortal life away, yet I always realized it would be useless. To die would only mean to stay in the Underworld for all eternity.
-How are you, my love? - Hades would ask me invariably.
-Bored. - Would be my, also invariable, answer.
-I brought you something today.- He told me one fateful time. He hid his arm behind his back and wore a tentative gaze.
-What is it? - I asked, intrigued despite myself. He produced a pomegranate.
-I thought you would like something fresh to eat. - He explained while I dug out some impossibly beautiful red seeds . I thanked him.
-Your mother has won.
-What do you mean she's won? - I asked while I ate three of the grains.
-Zeus won't have her devastate the human world any longer. He has forced me to give you back to her. - I couldn't tell whether the expression in his eyes was sadness or anger. I swallowed two more seeds before replying.
-I get to go home? - I asked in disbelief.
-You will go home. - Hades conceded and there was no mistaking the anguish in his tone or the speculative look on his eyes, which confused me.
All of a sudden I wasn't really sure I wanted to go "home". I ate another pomegranate seed while I asked myself what in the name of the Styx was it that I really wanted. I had no idea I would grow to love my husband, you see. Yet there was the feeling, starting to gnaw at the corners of my befuddled mind.
-Are you not happy? - The God of the Dead asked me in the bitterest of tones.
-I am.
Hades nodded.
-Hermes is here to fetch you. You may go with him.
I was well secured in the arms of my mischievous half-brother before the Fates intervened. Quite literally. Hermes was about to take of when Atropos shouted behind him:
-Stop! The Queen must not leave the Underworld.
The white-robed creature wore an air of utmost seriousness while her sisters placed themselves at either side of her.
-Why ever not? - Hermes asked with a confused expression that must have been mirrored in my face.
-She has eaten food from our lands. - Clotho announced in a severe tone. –She must remain.
Hermes let go of me (no God would ever dare disobey the word of the Fates) and I landed heavily on the shores of the Styx. I was unsurprised to find Lord Hades looking down at me when I raised my head.
He looked pleased but not surprised. I let him lift me from the ground. I let him put his arm around me. Was there any point in refusing?
Father's fury when he heard of how his brother had outsmarted him was something to behold, I've been told. But all was right soon enough. At least for the world of men.
I was allowed to go back to mother at least for six months a year and she was kind to their harvests once more. I was forever torn in two but they did not seem to mind. They never came to mind. They just celebrated the coming of the Spring year after year with their banal feasts and merrymaking. No one wondered whether Spring was happy to come.
Oh, but never mind that. I got my temple and my worship. I was forever carved into the fancy of mankind as the oddly contradictive goddess of Spring yet Queen of the Underworld. I got my tale sung so many times I could recite it backwards, were anyone to be interested in such a thing.
Had this not happened to me, nobody would be interested in the perusal of this composition, now would they? I've got no complaint. So go back and mind your own, there's no need to worry. Spring will come this year, just like she always does. Bursting through the earth to meet her rejoiced mother, leaving a broken hearted husband behind. What is it she cares more about?
Even if you hated this I would still love to know what you think.