Last year, in a memorable trip to Tate Britain with Temi, I stumbled across a painting of a woman holding what looked like an apple. The painting was named “Proserpine”, and it was only until I searched it up later that I realised she was Persephone, Wife of Hades. So, as part of my tiny mission to bring more attention to female figures (both in the real world and in the literary/classical one) this submission is me retelling the story of Proserpine (Kore).
Dante Rosetti’s painting of her shows the instant in which a gleam hits the wall behind Kore as some inlet abruptly opened. This beam of light from the upper world is met as she glances cautiously towards it, immersed in her thought. (I have also included the picture I took of the 4 foot painting at the museum below.)
Demeter, the goddess of crops, is the foundation for morality. For without food in the stomachs of men, they often resort to crime. She bore her daughter Proserpine with Zeus- who had promised her to Hades as soon as she came to existence. The underworld to the Greeks is not the hell or heaven that we have come to know. It is far more complicated than just eternal punishment or eternal bliss. Their underworld splits into distinct compartments, which I will outline. Six rivers flow, Charon the ferryman transports only the souls who have a coin to pay him for his troubles. Thus, the importance of proper burial rites (with a coin placed under the tongue or over their eyes) should not have been taken lightly. The men who lived ordinary and indifferent lives (which was the majority of them) roam in the Asphodel meadows where they wander aimlessly. Those who were sent to the Mourning fields were once victims of unrequited loves, notoriously Dido and Phaedra. The men who had distinguished themselves in their lifetime, and there were little of them, were sent to Elysium. The souls who dwelled here had often lived righteous lives or had immortalised themselves as heroes worthy of Elysium’s easy afterlife. Heroes such as Achilles and Peleus were sent here, but also mortal men such as Socrates (who proved his worth through his philosophy). The Isles of the Blessed were islands in the realms of Elysium. Those blessed enough to be sent here were granted the choice to be sent to Elysium or be reborn. If a soul was reborn thrice and achieved Elysium all three times, they were then sent to the Isles of the blessed to live in eternal paradise. As the Elysian fields expanded to include ordinary mortals who lived decent lives, the fortunate isles were considered for the final destination for demigods and heroes. I hope that was enough context for Hades’ underworld.
Proserpine was promised to Hades at her birth and was swallowed by the earth when the time came and delivered to him. Her mother heartbreakingly roamed earth for 9 days looking for her daughter, denying herself food and rest. After hearing of her daughters’ fate, Demeter punished the divine Gods by drying all the crops. Demeter's love for her daughter is a story worthy to be told by itself, but we refocus. The oats, barley and wheat withered, soon the cattle died and humans suffered terribly. The Gods were stirred to action as regular sacrifices were not being prepared in their honour, so Zeus sent for Proserpine to reunite her with her mother. Hades, not fully trusting Proserpine to return to him, gave her the sweet seed of a pomegranate to eat. This forbidden fruit of the dead, made her bound to return and prevented her from dwelling eternally on Olympus with her mother. The pomegranate was the fruit in the painting I had mistaken for an apple. Proserpine was doomed to return to the underworld for a third of every year, and during this time, the soil is barren in its mourning.
The obvious mortal features of Proserpine in this painting are based on a human subject; Jane Morris. Her own story resembles Proserpine’s. She was an unhappy woman trapped in a miserable relationship with her callous and emotionally distant husband William Morris. Rosetti used Jane as his muse and had an intimate relationship with which lasted for decades. Rosetti’s painting of her seems to be the image of the peak of his entangled artistic and erotic fixations. The redness of the flesh of the pomegranate seeds matches the colour of her lips. Their relationship advanced until Rosetti suffered psychotic-schizophrenic episodes and became addicted to whiskey and chloral. He fell into a coma after drinking a bottle of laudanum (an opium mixture, containing morphine and codeine), leaving him partially paralysed. This rock bottom in his life was when she said fell out of love for him, and after his death she went on to pursue another lover. Eight oil versions of this painting were created, with the seventh being the final version, currently displayed in Tate Britain. The pomegranate resembles the captivity Proserpine had unknowingly ingested, her own unhappiness was not forced upon her but rather accepted. The ivy in the background of the painting is Proserpine’s clinging memory of the life she used to have. So, here we have Jane, a mortal woman, and Proserpine, a goddess, who have both endured the universal feeling of hopelessness and a doomed relationship. The sliver of light in the background signifies the unfulfilling gleam of hope for both women. Jane’s happiness was in the arms of her painter, and Kore’s was in her mothers.
- sham
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