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Myths about the Roman Goddess Proserpina
Near at hand
are groves and gardens, surrounded with morasses and a deep
cave, with a passage under ground, opening towards the
north. In this happy retirement was Proserpina
situated, when Pluto, passing in his chariot through the
cave, discovered her whilst busy in gathering flowers, with
her attendants, the daughters of Oceanus. Proserpina he
seized, and having placed her in his chariot, carried her to
Syracuse, where the earth opening, they both descended to
the infernal regions.
She had not been long there when the fame of her charms
induced Theseus and Pirithous to combine for the purpose of
carrying her thence; but in this they failed. When Ceres,
who was disconsolate for the loss of her daughter,
discovered where she was, Jupiter upon her repeated
solicitations, promised that Proserpina should be restored,
provided she had not yet tasted any thing in hell. Ceres
joyfully descended, and Proserpina, full of triumph,
prepared for her return, when lo! Ascalaphus, son of Acheron
and Gorgyra, discovered that he saw Proserpina, as she
walked in the garden of Pluto, eat some grains of a
pomegranate, upon which her departure was stopped. At last,
by the repeated importunity of her mother to Jupiter, she
extorted as a favor, in mitigation of her grief, that
Proserpina should live half the year in heaven, and the
other half in hell.
Proserpina is represented under the form of a beautiful
woman, enthroned, having something stern and melancholy in
her aspect. Statius has found out a melancholy employment
for her, which is, to keep a sort of register of the dead,
and to mark down all that should be added to that number.
The same poet mentions another of her offices of a more
agreeable nature: he says, when any woman dies who had been
a remarkably good wife in this world, Proserpina prepares
the spirits of the best women in the other to make a
procession to welcome her into Elysium with joy, and to
strew all the way with flowers where she is to pass.
Some represent Proserpina, Luna, Hecate, and Diana, as one;
the same goddess being called Luna in heaven, Diana on
earth, and Hecate in hell: and they explain the fable of the
moon, which is hidden from us in the hemisphere of the
countries beneath, just so long as it shines in our own. As
Proserpina was to stay six months with her mother, and six
with her husband, she was the emblem of the seed corn, which
lies in the earth during the winter, but in spring sprouts
forth, and in summer bears fruit.
The
mythological sense of the fable is this: the name of
Proserpina, or Persephone, among the Egyptians, was used to
denote the change produced in the earth by the deluge, which
destroyed its former fertility, and rendered tillage and
agriculture necessary to mankind.
Myths about
the Roman Goddess Proserpina
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