M³ Winning Is Everything

So Aphrodite cheats the court’s decision. No, she doesn’t flat out break the rules as that would not be allowed. The details of the case are that Adonis gets four months to spend however he wishes. Now if he chooses to spend it with one of the goddesses, that’s his choice, except when it’s not.

M³ Pretty Boy

So Persephone has the chest, and Aphrodite expects her not to open it, but we all know what happens when you give a box to someone in mythology: they open it. Okay, yes, Pandora didn’t open a box, she opened a jar, but we all know what we meant. Besides, squeezing an infant into a jar is just not practical.

On finding the boy, she raises him to manhood, which means Aphrodite has been gone for a while or the kid grows freakishly fast. After he’s a man, Persephone takes him on as her lover. Yeah, it’s kind of awkward, isn’t it? Even though Persephone is in no way related to him, she still raised him. So now we have a pseudo-incestuous relationship, here. Remember the side effects of parenting according to mythology? Yeah.

Anyway, Aphrodite finds out about this, and wants the kid back because she wanted Adonis for the same reason.

Does anyone else hear David Lee Roth’s cover of “Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody”? Just me? Well, okay then.

So Adonis’s only value to these two goddesses is for his body. It gets so bad that the matter actually goes to trial. Now, Zeus is a smart cookie, as we’ve seen, and what we’ve got here is a court case between two of his daughters, arguing over the man with whom they wish to cheat on their husbands with. Yeah, no way he’s going to get into that one.

He transfers the case (which is something he does quite frequently) to another court. Judge Calliope (of the Muses) gets jurisdiction. She more or less goes the Solomon route, here, dividing the year into thirds so that each goddess gets four months and Adonis gets time to himself, which I thought was considerate of Calliope to think that the guy might want some time to, you know, live his own life.

We are dealing with gods, though, and no story can end that simply. Aphrodite cheats.

M3 Counterparts

            The elevation of Persephone to Queen of the Underworld ends up leveling the playing field of the Greek hierarchy. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades each stand as rulers of a separate domain (sky, earth, and underworld, respectively). Now, though, each of these men has a female counterpart with as much or more power than the man. After witnessing Demeter’s mastery over crops and agriculture, her power over the earth cannot be denied. While Poseidon is the Earthshaker himself, Demeter’s power has a far more personal and lasting effect on humanity. People can survive the occasional earthquake, but not so much a crop failure.

            Likewise, Hades has Persephone as his counterpart. While he tends toward dignified repose, she can dish out the punishment, and is more to be feared than Hades is. Certainly she feels a large degree of independence, as well, for her to go ahead and have an affair with Adonis, particularly when Zeus gets involved to decree Adonis’s disposition.

            Zeus has his own female counterpart, but I’m not quite prepared to tell you who it is. We’ve just had 13 straight weeks of Persephone, so I think we need a bit of a hiatus from the Greeks. I’m thinking something Biblical for a bit.

            You want a hint about Zeus’s counterpart? Why? I’m not . . . fine. Okay, here’s a hint. He’s related to her. Yeah, I know, that’s not shocking since he’s related to most of the gods and goddesses. Well, too bad. Just deal with it for now. I’ll also say that she’s probably the most powerful of the Greek goddesses, putting all the others to shame with sheer scale of her power.

            Yep, that was another tease. Deal with it.

M3 Godly Truths

            A point of this myth stands out to me now that didn’t before, and I think it’s related to what I talked about regarding Loki with the myths surrounding Ragnarok. The gods must tell the truth. Core (since it’s before she becomes Persephone) has the opportunity to either refute Hades’s gardener—exposing him as a liar—or to lie herself about eating the pomegranate seeds.

            She does neither.

            Hades, when he heard the gardener, was overjoyed that he would be able to swear an oath about Core’s eating habits, so I think that the Greek gods are similarly bound to the truth in the same way that the Norse gods are.

            Core may not have had to volunteer the information herself, but once brought to light, she could not say a word against it because it was true. The gardener, likewise, cannot lie. If we fold in the Bible, it seems there is a prohibition against lying across the big three mythologies—with an exception made for trickster figures. I’m now curious to see if the Egyptian would follow suit, and the Hindu as well.

            I think it’s also important to point out that the prohibition is strictly against lying as opposed to deception in general. Several of the Greek gods will employ disguises by changing their shape. Zeus alone could write a book on how he has used deception in order to have affairs with mortal women (a separate volume would be for the goddesses).

            So actions are not as strictly relegated as speech, as if it possesses a different quality—one more revered? In my recollection, none of the Greek gods has ever spoken a falsehood, which is intriguing. While the Norse were quite clear that Freyja had to speak the truth, there doesn’t appear to be anything overtly said about this concerning the Greeks. However, just because it’s not overtly stated doesn’t make it untrue. So far, whenever anything is spoken, it is the complete truth. Zeus even holds his tongue with Hades, saying neither yes or no regarding permission to court Core.

            When Demeter refuses to let the crops grow, she is not bluffing, as it appears she would be incapable of such. She is speaking an absolute truth that she will destroy all of humanity if her daughter is not returned to her. This also makes it clear that there is no negotiation to be had, no bargain to be struck. It is an absolute truth.

            This idea makes for an interesting thought regarding one of Zeus’s myths, where he requires an oath from the other gods. It bears further investigation, certainly.

M3 War Over the Pretty Boy

War Over the Pretty Boy

            Adonis, born from his mother the tree, is very handsome. Aphrodite, goddess of love, is down with that, and wants to keep him for herself. So she locks him in a box—no one ever said that Greek mythology was free from abuse—and hands the box over to Persephone for safe keeping.

            The idea is that Persephone, being both the Queen of the Underworld and married to Hades, would be less inclined to do anything with Adonis. Plus, she’s supposed to keep the box locked tight and in secluded space so no one discovers him. Unfortunately for Aphrodite, Persephone is curious. She opens the box, discovers Adonis, and proceeds to make him her boy toy.

            Yes, she’s cheating on Hades. Affairs in Greek mythology are so common that they might as well be the normal instead of monogamy, but we have to remark on this one simply because of how gentlemanly Hades acted in courting her. And this is how she repays him.

            We have to conclude at this point that her power is such that she has no difficulty in brazenly cheating on him with Adonis. The affair was not kept private at all. When Aphrodite discovers what Persephone is doing, she takes the matter to Zeus. It’s a real People’s Court moment.

Both women want to possess Adonis. Zeus is in a pickle because on the one hand is his daughter Persephone and on the other is his daughter Aphrodite, neither of which he wishes to piss off. He does the only sensible thing and decides on shared custody. Persephone gets four months, Aphrodite four months, and Adonis has four months for himself. The entire affair would have been broadcast all over Olympus by taking the matter to Zeus, but Persephone shows no concern over Hades’s feelings.

The schedule is fine until Aphrodite cheats. She uses the power of her girdle (a belt) to make Adonis spend his own time with her, giving her twice as much time as what Persephone gets. However, it’s a legal play on the loophole, so no foul can be called. Again, Persephone is quite open about enjoying her boy toy, she’s just mad that Aphrodite outmaneuvered her and she gets shafted (less than she’d like) on the deal.

Hades actually takes no part in this myth, even though he would be well within his rights to take Adonis off the playing field. However, that honor goes to Ares. Persephone, not happy, informs the god of war of Aphrodite’s newest boy toy. Since that honor once belonged to Ares, he turns himself into a boar and kills Adonis.

Aphrodite, not into necrophilia, loses on this one. However, Persephone is the Queen of the Underworld, so Adonis would descend to her realm. She may have won that battle and continue to have herself a boy toy while still being married to Hades.

M3 Unnatural Love

            After all the effort and gentlemanly behavior of Hades, Persephone doesn’t prove to be as caring. In fact, she has herself an affair with a mortal and kicks off a catfight with Aphrodite. Aphrodite is responsible for starting the whole thing . . . well, indirectly. Okay, let’s get into.

            So, Aphrodite rescued a child born from a myrrh tree. . . .

            Um, right. I need to rewind a bit more, don’t I?

            Right, this is more of an Aphrodite myth, but it does have a big dose of Persephone in it.

            Okay, so King Cinryas was an arrogant SOB, and he decided to boast that his daughter was more beautiful than Aphrodite. Classic mistake. We’ve already seen with the likes of Arachne and others that it’s a crazy-bad idea to ever boast that someone can do X better than one of the gods.

            But he did it anyway. Now, in the course of punishments handed down from the gods, the Acteon and Arachne generally top out the list as being the most famous, and received pretty severe punishments. Demeter has a nasty one about a man name Erysichthon—say that five times fast—where she makes him perpetually hungry. However, Aphrodite wins the prize in my book.

            When Cinryas makes his boast, Aphrodite gets revenge with her own style. Cinryas has a daughter, Smyrna. Instead of doing something directly to Cinryas, Aphrodite instead puts a whammy on Smyrna. She makes Smyrna fall uncontrollably in lust with her father.

            And she acts on this lust.

            Yup, the daughter rapes the father. He’s not really aware, either, since she slipped in at night. And she gets pregnant.

            Yeah, this is why Aphrodite wins this particular contest. PSA: do not ever, ever claim to be more beautiful than Aphrodite.

When Cinryas learns that he is both the father and grandfather of Smyrna’s unborn child, he kind of goes off the deep end. He wants to kill her and the child for the unnatural lust. Aphrodite felt a little bad over what happened, so, at the last moment, she turned Smyrna into a myrrh tree. Cinryas’s sword cut the tree in half, and out fell a baby boy.

This sure beats the idea of the stork, right?

This baby boy is Adonis, and he becomes the object of Persephone’s affections, but we’ll tackle that next week.

M3 The Dread Queen

            Core, now under her married name of Persephone, is a force to be reckoned with, and not always a nice one. The level of power she now has is, frankly, staggering. And she seems to use that power quite easily, and to bring about fear in people.

            When people speak of Hades, it’s usually with respect, and by calling him “mighty.” Persephone, though, is a different story. She is seen, not unlike Galadriel, as a beautiful and terrible queen. Odysseus, who openly flaunted Poseidon’s power and deliberately blinded his son Polyphemus is wary of Persephone’s great power: “does Proserpine want to lay a still further load of grief upon me” he asks of his mother.

            From that line, we can tell that he believes Persephone (Proserpine is the Roman spelling) is the one who hands down harsh punishments. She and Hades share this realm, but she is the one Odysseus attributes responsibility to for his grief.

            A little more explanation about that. It’s important to note that Odysseus isn’t actually suffering from anything done by Persephone. Rather, it’s that the automatically assigns the responsibility to her that’s more important. He does this readily, which tells us that Persephone has this reputation about her.

            We aren’t privy much to Core’s temperament prior to the kidnaping, and the crying seems very girlish, but that girl from before is not who she is now. Now she is Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld. She is powerful, sometimes cruel, and has no problem with making people suffer (again, an extension of how Odysseus readily assigns blame).

            Persephone is almost always referred to as the Queen of the Underworld, yet Hades is seldom referred to as the King of the Underworld. The only king readily within the Greek pantheon is actually Zeus as King of the Gods. It’s interesting that she would have the title of Queen, then, denoting not just the elevated power she now has, but also the status.

M3 Core 2.0

            Since the clause about food from the underworld is boilerplate, it’s something that most of the gods know about, and Core is no different. Many attribute her fasting upon arrival simply to sorrow over missing her mother, but this doesn’t exclude the idea that she knew that she could not eat of this food. Hades plied her with food the entire time she was there, as he understood this to be the case.

            The entire game has been about getting her to eat underworld food. If she eats, Hades wins. If she doesn’t, Demeter wins, and, as Demeter’s daughter, Core would know this. She couldn’t help but know this, especially as it is the standard.

            This, of course, begs the question, why did she eat the seeds?

            Simple, she wants to upgrade.

            Demeter is adamant that she will starve out humanity unless she gets her daughter back. Core knows how much her mother loves her, and the math isn’t hard that no one side is going to win this entirely, unless it’s Core.

            By eating the seeds, she irrevocably becomes part of the underworld. This cannot be changed. It can be mitigated, however. Because Demeter is adamant, Core must become a timeshare. Half the year she is on earth with her mother, and half the year she is with Hades as his wife. Had Core consented to marry Hades in the beginning, she likely would have only assumed this new aspect as queen of the underworld. If she had not eaten the seeds, she would have gone back to being a daughter of Demeter, a goddess of agriculture.

By taking the seeds, she must, of necessity in order to attempt to satisfy both parties, be both. She remains the daughter of Demeter, holding power over agriculture and the earth, and is the wife of Hades, the queen of the underworld, Persephone.

She now has dominion over the world of the living and the land of the dead.

Core, through this compromise, has become one of the most powerful goddesses in the Greek pantheon.

M3 Mythological Laws

            Before we get to the opportunity before Core, we need to discuss the seeds. Specifically, we need to discuss what Core knows about eating food from the Underworld. When Rhea hands down the deal, the stipulation is that Core cannot have partaken of any food from the underworld. This is something that Demeter does not even balk at, and it is something that even Hades’s gardener can understand, though he shouldn’t even be privy to the terms of the deal.

            When a compromise or a deal is made, consideration is given to both sides. But the compromise that Rhea hands down would be completely one-sided if not for the provision about the food of the underworld. Given how all sides react to this particular clause, this is not a surprise or new invention, it’s boilerplate.

            In fact, given what this applies to, it may reflect a law of nature, like gravity, or Voltron as Defender of the Universe (Lion Voltron, not Vehicle). The underworld is almost always a one-way trip. People check in, but they don’t check out. Heroes are the exception, such as Odysseus and Heracles, however, they need to cross into the underworld while alive, and are restricted to what they can and cannot do.

            The very nature of the underworld is that it hold onto people who enter. They become part of the underworld, and are inseparable from it. So when Core eats the seeds, which are part of the underworld, she, too, becomes part of Hades’s realm, which changes the ball game.

M3 Core's Wishes

            Most presentations of Persephone’s myth relegate her to the damsel in distress. Many even call the myth “The Rape of Persephone.” She has been kidnapped by the dastardly villain Hades and must be rescue. There she goes on a hunger strike and cries until she is rescued from his evil clutches. Even Disney’s Hercules presents Hades as the bad guy. He’s a convenient scapegoat, and his association with the underworld makes him an easy target.

            But as we’ve seen, Hades has acted with great civility—especially for the Greek gods. The question must be asked, then, what are Core’s wishes in all of this? Has she actually been forcibly abducted?

            She fasted, yes, but this may not be due to grief, but rather to the prohibition about the food of the dead. She would know that to partake of that food would mean she must remain with Hades no matter what. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it would remove her completely from her mother. This would have repercussions for her status later on.

            She cries, yes, and Hades even remarks that she “seems unhappy” and so will be returned to Demeter. However, I think there is something greater going on behind all of this. Core is in an interesting situation, which I think she can capitalize on.

M3 Gentleman Hades

            The myth of Persephone stands out as a point where a god has the opportunity and even the motive to rape a woman, but chooses not to. Yes, he—technically—kidnaps Core, but this is mostly due to Zeus waffling over an answer. Hades did the right thing in going to Zeus and asking for permission to marry Core. This is unheard of in mythology.

M3 Zeus's Smarts

            Zeus, king of the gods, is very hands-off when it comes to the whole situation with Core, Demeter, and Hades. In fact, he makes an appeal to a higher power in order for any movement to be made. He realizes that he will be unable to get either Demeter or Hades to budge. A mother will not be without her daughter, and Hades is smitten with love.

            Yes, smitten.

            So with two forces that refuse to move and make headway, Zeus takes the only rational course of action. He tells on them.

M3 To Eat or Not to Eat

While staying as Hades’s guest, Core fasts. She refuses to eat for 10 days. At this next bit the myth changes based on who is telling it. Some myths say that she broke down eating 7 pomegranate seeds. Others say 6, still others say 3. One myth even says that she didn’t eat any seeds, but that Hades’s gardener swore that she did. This is important as it becomes part of the deal for her release. See, technically, eating something from the underworld makes her part of the underworld.

M3 Hades's Domain

            So, Zeus can’t work Demeter over. He simply has no way to leverage her. She has all the power when it comes to crops, so Zeus has no choice but to work on hades. But the thing is he’s also stonewalled as he doesn’t “want to offend Hades.”

M3 Demeter's Loss

            Welcome to a new year where we’re going to begin off M³ with a bang and tackle the myth of Persephone. Buckle up, this one’s intense.

            Our story begins with Hades, who’s a lonely kind of guy, and has his eye on Core (who will become Persephone, later). Instead of behaving like all the other Greek gods and simply ravaging her, Hades approaches and asks Zeus for permission to marry her. Seeking out dad’s permission is very old-school, and classy on Hades’s part, even if she is Hades’s niece at the same time (Yes, it’s incest, but it’s the Greeks. What are you going to do?).