Persephone, the reluctant Queen

Who tells the stories?

Legend has it that the Greek god of the Underworld, Hades, desired the young Persephone, goddess of Spring. So he asked his brother, Zeus, if he could have her as his ”bride”. Will it surprise you to know that Persephone was also Zeus’s daughter?

Demeter is Persephone’s mother, Zeus’s sister, and the goddess of grain and the harvest— agriculture. This is a web of relations so take heart if it gets confusing.

Having received permission from Zeus, the myth describes Hades abducting her as she picked beautiful flowers in a field. In another version of this myth, Zeus and Hades are co-conspirators! Depending on the myth, Persephone was with an interesting circle of maidens: 

There were water nymphs who were depicted as springs in human form, 

Along with Pallas who was the granddaughter of the god of the sea, Poseidon,

And finally, Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, the moon, and chastity.

As she innocently dances and frolics with the nymphs and goddess, a beautiful and incomparable narcissus catches her eye. She caresses and attempts to uproot the flower. Her success is quickly followed by horror as she watches the earth crack open where the flower had been and Hades lurches out to grab her and take her to the Underworld.

Upon her disappearance, her mother, Demeter, searches high and low for her. She is bereft and questions everyone and punishes some before approaching Helios, the god of the sun. Riding his chariot east to west, he knows enough to reveal the terrible tale.

After pleading with Hades, Demeter’s brothers (Zeus and Hades) decide that Persephone would return to her mother. There was trickery involved, though: before leaving the Underworld, Hades offered Persephone four pomegranate seeds (or six depending on the myth). Because of this seemingly innocent act of eating, Persephone’s fate is cursed and she is forced to return to the Underworld for a third of each year. This is one of many old stories explaining the existence of winter: when Persephone is below, her mother mourns her and very little grows. When she returns to her mother, everything buds, blooms, and flourishes.

This is a story of death. A partial one, a series of little deaths perhaps. Of skirting it, dancing with it or falling in and out of it. Of rapturous moments, quakes, intoxication, and numbness. Is it a coincidence that both loss of consciousness and the state of post-climax have been described as ”la petite mort”?

The Persephone cocktail is anchored by absinthe. This green, anise-flavored spirit is extremely alcoholic, sometimes weighing in at 75% alcohol by volume. Historically, it had a reputation of causing madness, hallucinations, and debauchery. More recently, it has been labelled no worse than other potent spirits. Fortunately, a little goes a long way.

The Persephone. My cocktail is a riff on Ernest Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon”. 

🌿🌿My cocktail deliberately includes fewer than four seeds of the fruit and a few thyme leaves, a reminder of the warmth and life above. It’s delicious with any bubbly. 

Hemingway’s cocktail is described here. “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

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