The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  I saw that Demeter finally fully understood. I saw her put a hand to her mouth, I saw the sprigs of wheat fall from her hair, in the shock of revelation.

  “Listen...”

  I saw Hades pull back his clawed fingers, and a horrified expression spread on his face. He understood immediately, it was a shame only that I had understood before him, which made his understanding an accessory that gave me satisfaction, nothing else: it was the helmet of the Lord of the Underworld, the helmet of the king. And I was the queen.

  I held it with both hands, as I had seen him do. Hades clenched his own, to no avail, since calling for the helmet of invisibility, to snatch it from me, was impossible even for him. I was his wife, the queen of the Avernus. It was my right.

  “You’re shamefully slow.” I addressed him, in a tone of disdain.

  Our eyes met for the last time, and spasmodically when they were focused on me I saw in his eyes, as I had seen so many times, the fire blazing. I was impressed on him, and he on me. Then darkness swept behind him, he opened his cloak, while he slipped aside to take me.

  I did not worry. He could only succeed if he caught me by surprise.

  I felt the curious sensation of being placed in a box when I lowered the helmet on my head, over my temples. I went away, I came up behind him, and I danced inside. But it worked: it was like watching everything through an opaque glass, as if the whole world were out of focus. The only clear creature was me, how sharp were my movements.

  Hades had come to the place where he had found me a moment before. He seized me like a hawk, and his closeness was the insurmountable limit of all my rebellion. If he had captured me, though invisible, I would have been trapped.

  But I was no longer there. I was immersed in the smell of magnolia, and I was far from his power.

  “Hermes,” I announced in a clear voice, “I have a message for the Olympian Zeus, from his daughter. Tell him Persephone has stopped playing with flowers!”

  With a high mocking laugh, I ran away into the forest, in the opposite direction from the holy mountain.

  I disappeared from the sight of gods and mortals. And spring disappeared, from the sight of gods and mortals.

  Hymn to Persephone

  This close similarity between the iconography of Persephone and Demeter categorically refutes the hypothesis that the two deities are incarnations of things that were so different, and easily to distinguish between, like the land and vegetation that grows from it.

  [...]

  Mostly, the image of the buried seed as it is reborn to a new and better life spontaneously suggests a comparison with the lot of man, reinforcing the hope that the tomb is only the beginning of a life that is better and happier, in some brighter as yet unknown world.

  F. Frazer, The Golden Bough

  I plucked flowers.

  They withered in the furrows, rotted in the ditches. The petals fell from the trees before they closed on the corollas, they fell on the yellowed grass on the sods that had been unnecessarily turned over by the plow the peasants had broken, prey to their anger and despair. The tares and thistles and weeds stifled the tender shoots of wheat forever. As I passed, invisible to the eyes of gods and mortals, the fields betrayed the hopes placed in them, the buried seeds withered, choosing death over the agony of existence without being able to flourish.

  I ground the petals in my hands, threw them away, a long way from me.

  The dense smoke of cremation, like so many black columns rose up to heaven, and darkened the

  clouds. The city that honored my mother, Eleusis, sacrificed whole hecatombs, and the stench of blood was mixed with that of famine; the fertility of the region, praised all over the world, was denied and destroyed.

  I stamped on the flowers with my bare feet.

  If a tree dared to touch me, its branches shed their leaves, and its center became yellowish, spongy, the bark split, filling the air with infected spores, which infected the entire orchard. I left behind me dead trunks, blackened branches, new wood for funeral pyres, and I did not turn around to look.

  At Pergusa, where the raging famine and the living walked on a mash of rotten and molding buds, I took two pine branches, two firebrands among the many that had been lit to burn the dead, to ward off the chill of the frosty night. But the chill was in me, and it did not help me to feel any better: when dawn paled the stars, it did not serve me to illuminate the many roads that branched off at the mortals’ crossroads, I threw the firebrands away. There was nothing left for me at Pergusa.

  I wandered aimlessly, and the effort exhausted me, thirst tormented me. I did not refresh my lips at any spring, because I was afraid my mother’s nymphs would see me; so when I saw a hut by chance with a thatched roof, I entered.

  The door swung open to the wind, the old woman was crouched at the fire close to it, grumbling, while I sat, invisible. I was the cause of everything. Only the results were tangible. There was a little sweet infusion in the amphora, and when the old woman fell asleep, I poured some into a wooden spoon, to give respite to the thirst. It was scented water, useful only for disguising the fast. There was nothing else in the hut. When I swallowed, I had the feeling of the liquid having to overcome an expanse of needles planted in my throat, the evocative fragrance of mint cleared my mind a little.

  Mint, I thought. Mint was used to compose the bodies, to cover the fetid smell of putrefaction, mint was linked to something I knew and loved. I drank until the scorching thirst was broken, vaguely aware that if mortals were reduced to use mint in their teas, it meant there was little else left in the world. Not even the daffodils were blooming any longer.

  The geckos were watching me from the walls: as soon as I turned my eyes on them, they fled into the cracks. The animals saw me. They ran from me, but it was no use, because the famine prevailed over them too. My hair hung unadorned, my robe flapped loose bedraggled against my legs, my feet ached, my ankles even more. I was breathing hard, heavy, and did not know where to go.

  I looked into the straw that the old woman had vacated for the sole remaining occupant: a child, so thin that it was possible to count his ribs, he tried to chew while he slept, because when awake he had no occasion to do so. A child, I thought. For some reason, it seemed important.

  Baby... something stirred inside me. I felt compassion and touched the amphora, to take with me the deadly fragrance, the smell of mint. The liquid began to simmer in the heat of the torches I had discarded, but which had become part of me, to illuminate my path. It thickened into a sticky semolina, a polenta made of those cereals, which I only vaguely remembered. Now, in his sleep, the child smiled.

  I left carrying with me the misery of that place, to take it away from them; but I forgot everything as soon as I descended the slopes of the hill. I rubbed my hands together, to rid myself of the wheat powder, without even knowing where it came from. To place one foot before the other was an ordeal, now.

  I met my sister in the wild forests, where the shade was cool, the water flowed and the flowers no longer bloomed, suffocated by lush vegetation.

  She could not see me, but she raised her head; I saw that she was pale, with skin stretched over cheekbones, the beautiful tawny braid hanging on her back, undernourished and tired. She could not die, unlike mortals, but like them she could suffer. Her lips were dry, and cracked, when they opened,

  “Sister, is that you?”

  I sat down on a boulder near by, without removing the helmet. Greyhounds with their lunar fangs whined and remained at a distance.

  “You know what you have caused, sister?”

  My back hurt, my legs ached. Pride was hurting me, and love was hurting me. There was only pain for me, wherever I turned.

  Artemis continued, speaking to the inconsistent air between us.

  “The Athenian olive trees produce nothing, because they didn’t flower. Your mother’s fields, in Eleusis, are barren expanses, burned by the sun. Even here, in the woods that no man could ever violate, the trees give way
to the parasites that cover them, after your passing weakened them. You are destroying creation.”

  I clung to my suffering body, all that was left of me. I did not know where to go, because everywhere I went, they would have welcomed me and held me.

  I breathed, I found that if I breathed deeply, without fighting the pain, but supporting it, I was able to alleviate it a little, and I said,

  “Once, when we were little girls, you said you’d never let anyone make you angry, and if that happened, you would have struck without hesitation. Blame me for having followed your teaching, or for having waited so long before trying it?”

  The goddess of wild nature, the moon that governs it, untied her shoes and dipped her feet in the spring. She did not have

  nymphs with her, only dogs. Even the goddesses, when they need to, want to be alone.

  “My words were not to blame, sister. Out of everyone, you came to me because you knew I would not blame you: as far as I’m concerned, you were too understanding, with too many people, and for too long.”

  I changed position, to relieve my tormented body. My mother would have been able to help me, if I had asked her; Hades would have turned over the Underworld and reordered the cosmos, if I had gone back to him.

  No one among those I loved, would have turned against me. For this I was hiding.

  Artemis continued:

  “Demeter is looking for you, she wanders ceaselessly; and there is a black shadow next to her, so close that we could say that Demeter is wandering with a black shadow. They cross the burned fields and villages decimated by famine, they are always behind you. A black chariot and a procession of nymphs. Life and death have come together to find you, sister. You cannot escape them both. Not forever.”

  They had decided to come to an agreement, I thought.

  “I do not need to escape forever.”

  “What will you do?”

  “When the time comes you will all know. Not much more

  time must pass.” Artemis splashed her feet with the water, as she did when

  we were little girls, a habit that she had evidently not lost. I envied her. Perhaps she had made the right choice. But you cannot choose to fall in love. No more than you can choose to grow. She was what she was, and showed it to me saying,

  “As revenge it’s not much, sister. You should hit those responsible for all this, directly and without hesitation.”

  “I’m doing it, believe me.”

  “And the mortals?”

  “I have saved the mortals more than you realize, and certainly more than they will ever believe. I spent my life saving them, weave wreaths of flowers to bless the crops. I interceded for them before the Lord of the Underworld. Now it’s up to them to save me. They are my subjects on both sides of their existence.”

  Artemis did not object. They were concepts that she understood better than anyone, even better than Athena. Instead, she warned:

  “They’ll find you, sister. I hope you have thought about what to do when it happens, because believe me, when they find you, the Olympian relentlessness will acquire a new meaning for you. Our father has moved, and even the Enosigeo has contributed: don’t go near the coast. They’re closing in.”

  I smiled in my growing pain, and I forced my body to get up for the last time: far from Olympus, the land that was under the influence of my pain. No, it would not be long.

  “It will change the world,” I prophesied, “change your life, and death itself. It will change the Olympians. Their ruthlessness is nothing, Artemis, because I rule life and dispense death. I had hoped they would not force me to go this far.”

  “You should have held a bow and arrow, or sword and shield, and they would have respected you. The perfume of a flower does not scare anyone.”

  But I did not want to scare anyone. I never wanted to instill fear or awe. I never wanted to impose myself, because I knew what would have happened if I had been forced to do so.

  “It is when the scent fades that you need to be afraid, Artemis. But it seems that they have not understood: now they will understand.”

  I breathed the scent of magnolia that filled his helmet, wondering where to go, knowing only that I did not know where to go. They would not take me until I

  stopped, but when this happened, the close of life and death would have been the insurmountable limit of all my rebellions.

  “Tell Athena that the olive trees will soon bloom,” I prayed to the wind to support me, because I was no longer able to do it alone, “tell her I will plait a crown of olive leaves for her, ask her to forgive me.”

  “She has already forgiven you,” said Artemis, watching the wind in which she could not see me. “It’s not you who has to ask for forgiveness, sister. Make them kneel before you, repay them for what they did to you. Take your revenge to fruition.”

  This is not revenge, I thought. There was a smile at that thought, which freed me as I walked away, invisible as the wind that supported me, for the last time, for the last journey.

  That smile wakened the seeds, peeled the blackened sheaths, while the buds quivered, as if they were asking why they had returned from the realm of the dead. In the parched fields the sods were pregnant. Such a thing was not possible, not for Hades or Demeter; but I am the intermediate goddess, I am the lady of death and bearer of spring, and for me nothing is impossible. The seeds killed in the furrow are mine. It is I who bring them to life.

  I breathed deeply, I felt the smell of mint behind the magnolia, and both meant the same thing.

  I did not know where to go, but I went anyway.

  The wind put me down gently, blew the sweaty hair from my forehead, brought with it the scent of spring in my body, to return to spread it throughout the world.

  He left, and I remained wrought with pain, tearing clumps of earth in which the seeds sprouted and bloomed quickly, eagerly, to make up for lost time. From my hands fell the soil, berries and grains of wheat.

  In Elis, at the foot of the mountain of Menthe, at the crossroads on the edge of the woods, I cried so loudly that the empty fields burst into flower, up to the horizon.

  Making a last, supreme effort of will, I straightened up, leaning against the statue of the goddess protector of travelers. I wondered who she was. Who knows where she would be, after the last of the mortals who worshiped her had died... I trudged on wild mint, until I came to the poplar grove. There, under the white-silvery branches they rustled softly, surprised, in the sunset that outlined the stone altar on the summit, I raised my hands and I took off the helmet.

  “Help me...”

  The pain returned, a sea wave uncontrollable, unbearable.

  “Please... help... me”

  The helmet fell and rolled on the grass, and remained there, forgotten. I leaned against a white poplar, I clung to the trunk, feeling my body harden, shrink, become a granite column, up to the throat, to the head before subsiding, leaving me breathless.

  “Help... mother ... somebody ...”

  “My lady?” cool hands, solicitous voices, the leaves above me

  whispered to each other, commenting trying to understand. I realized that I had started to cry, because of the pain in my body and spirit. Both unbearable.

  “My lady, but you .. oh, Leuka, help me! You cannot stay here!”

  I pulled myself up, and I smelled a scent of mint, when the nymph wiped my moist forehead. I cried even more, I began to stammer:

  “Forgive me, I have only brought misfortune, but I had nowhere else to go... to any nymph to ask for help, they would betray me at once, only here perhaps I will have the time to... to..”

  Minthe supported me on my right, Leuka on my left, and they helped me to walk up to the spring, consecrated

  to Memory. The other nymphs moved excitedly, piling up green branches and soft moss, and soon I was able to lie down on a fresh and fragrant bed. I felt as they smoothed my hair, I felt them take off my clothing that had by now been reduced to mud covered rags.

  “I�
�ll go, if you do not want another disaster... but I could not think of another place, to...”

  Brown curls fell on me as she handed me a cup carved from a burr of wood, a mint infusion, warm and sweet.

  “Misfortune, you? We have returned to our mountain, you have delivered us from the dead, ma’am. You bring misfortune, if ever. I’m so sorry for what you have suffered, poor lady...”

  The nymphs will never forget a kindness. The poplars closed their fronds over the clearing, where I was wrought with pain, until the infusions and gentle hands released the tension in the muscles and peace returned to me, however temporarily, which allowed me to remember who I was, why I was there, and what costs it would entail. That pain was only the beginning. Strangely, I realized it served to make me think again.

  It was a very long night, of which I have few memories. Just as well, I imagine.

  The nymphs combed my tousled, tangled hair to clean it of dead branches and dry leaves, and the flax soaked in spring water cooled my body, and what had to happen happened. It is all very confused. The only clear memory was that, at some point, the pain had become so much a part of me that I was able to ignore it enough to ask the nymphs what had happened in the world, while I was wandering without seeing it.

  “They are looking for you,” was the reply, which I expected, “Mother Earth and the Catactonio will seek incessantly, everyone is looking for you, and the lightning splits the sky, and the earth trembles, because the damned stir, without the overlord who controls them. The sea

  nuzzles the beaches, floods the islands. At night, when the infernal creatures fly...”

  A general shudder caused Menthe to immediately change the subject.

  “Has he got rid of you for this, lady? I can hardly believe it.”

  I shook my head, and I saw that my hair, under the tireless care of the nymphs, was regaining the silky softness of red gold. Leuka offered me half an apricot, on whose curves glistened honey; I realized that despite what had happened, I was hungry. I ate it in two bites, and Leuka gave me another. In constant pain, I began to feel better. I said: