spending the rest of the time at my side: when

flowers come up in spring, and bloom in the summer,

you will rise too from the deep mists and darkness –

to the amazement of men, as well as the gods.

But how did Hades abduct you? What tricks

did he use to bring you away to the dark?’

‘Mother,’ Persephone answered, ‘I will tell you it all.

When Hermes came for me on the orders of Zeus,

to take me out of Erebus, so you could see me

and abandon your vendetta against the gods,

I jumped for joy; but then Hades, unnoticed,

gave me the seed of a pomegranate to eat,

and made me taste it: it was sweet like honey.

I’ll explain, just as you ask me to, how he

snatched me away in the first place, when Zeus

planned everything to bring me down under the earth.

We were playing together in an uncut meadow

– me and all my friends – and gathering for fun

handfuls of the wild flowers that were growing there:

saffron and irises, hyacinths, and young roses,

lilies gorgeous to look at, and a narcissus

that bloomed, just like a crocus, in the soil.

While I was taken up with that, from nowhere

the ground beneath me split apart, and out

came the great king of millions of the dead

who dragged me, as I screamed, into his gold-

covered chariot, and took me down into the earth.

Now you’ve heard what it hurts me to remember.’

That whole day long, they were completely at one:

each warmed the other’s heart, and eased it of sorrow,

the two of them brimming over with happiness

as they hugged one another for joy again and again.

The goddess Hecatē came to them and joined them;

still wearing her veil of white linen, she caught

Demeter’s little daughter over and over

in her arms, and became her companion forever.

Only then did Zeus, the deep- and wide-bellowing God,

send down to speak to Demeter her own mother,

Rhea, to reconcile her with her family.

On his behalf, she could offer whatever new honours

were needed, and guarantee that Persephone

would stay down in the darkness for only a season,

the third of a year, and the rest with her mother

and all of the gods. Rhea hurried to the task,

reaching the fields, near Eleusis at Rarion

where harvests once were abundant, but now

no harvest could come up from the cropless plain

where Demeter had hidden away the white barley,

though afterwards, as the spring went on, it would

thicken and move with long corn, and the furrows

would be filled in due course with cut stalks

while all the rest was gathered up into sheaves.

Here the goddess first came down from the trackless air

and she and Demeter greeted one another with joy.

Rhea delivered her message from Zeus, and the promises

he made for Demeter, and for Persephone,