skinnybitchwitch:

theisiscult:

ayahalloway:

valiantparadox:

Hades and Persephone, 2015

Hades has always been one of the chillest of the Greco-Roman gods and my all-time favorite, but of course his most famous myth is the unfortunate ‘Rape of Persephone’. I thought this was quite uncharacteristic, seeing that in all his other myths he’s really cool about a lot of shit, so I asked one of my professors about it and she laid down some knowledge. Beginning with the name, rape was actually a poor translation of the latin verb rapére (to snatch or to take) meaning that the myth is actually ‘the snatching of persephone’. Still pretty bad but it gets a bit better. Between falling madly in love with Persephone and abducting her, Hades went to her father, Zeus, and asked to marry her. Since women didn’t count in ancient Greece, Persephone and her mother, Demeter, didn’t have any say in this and Zeus was probably like “oh wow I forgot I had that daughter but yeah sure bro go for it” and so Hades did. Similar to the way Greek grooms picked up their brides, Hades shows up literally out of the earth and says “hey babe I’m your husband now let’s go to my house.” I’m not saying this is good I mean it’s still really fucked up but I hope it explains some things.

Further on, Hades is still pretty chill husband (for antiquity). I mean even though he’s besotted with her, he lets Persephone go home for nearly half a year and I can see them being a pretty great arranged marriage. This has been a psa.

Also, according to several myths, Hades went out of his way to have plants brought down just for her. He bent over backwards and twisted sideways to make her happy. Even promising her equal say in everything that happened in the underworld (which is a Big Freakin’ Deal in ancient Greece). 

Some myths even say that Persephone intentionally made Hades give her all sorts of rights a woman normally wouldn’t have. He may have been the ‘Crooked One’, but she was known as the ‘Iron Queen’- girl was a goddess of the Underworld just as much as Springtime by the time she was done with Hades. (Also known as the goddess of ‘Duality in some cases.) It was forbidden to call on Persephone because she was one lady you did not want to cross.

And they were the couple that cheated the least. Like, in the old myths, there were /maybe/ five myths of cheating? Which says a whole hell of a lot when compared to Zeus, or Poseidon. ( Probably the only god that cheated less than those two was Hera.)

“In fact, Plato says that Hades is so named because he is a beneficent and gentle god towards those who have come to abide with him.” – Plutarch

I don’t know nearly as much about mythology as I’d love to so I don’t know if this is all true but gosh I love the thought that it is.