The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  I was forced to remove my hand. The light that had fallen was by now a leaden twilight, and the air was heavy with rain. Lightning stabbed the hills, the thunder made my eardrums vibrate. But I was not interested.

  I held Kore close covering her ears, and I laughed, I laughed until my belly ached. I laughed so much that I had to lean on Hades so as not to fall, even though I was already practically seated on the ground.

  “No... my husband... you’re... amazing...”

  I put my child on her father’s knee – who seemed a little alarmed at my action – because I was choking, I needed air, I laughed and I laughed and I laughed for what Hades’ wound had shown me.

  I tried to calm down but failed, it was too amusing, it was a myth that would always provoke convulsions of laughter in me, because the monster against which my half-brother

  hurled himself, without a moment’s hesitation, since Heracles had never known fear, was not Cerberus.

  It was not Cerberus.

  It was frightful to behold certainly, like all the demons of Tartarus, covered with snakes and yes, with three heads menacing growling and drooling; but it did not resemble the hellhound, not at all, unless you know even minimally what Cerberus looked like. The heads were apelike, of entirely different proportions. It was the size of a draft horse, and I will not deny that to make it submit was a task worthy of respect, but any man of the stature of my half-brother would have managed. I was sorry to see the desolate expression of the monster, when Heracles began to drag it toward the surface, away from its home.

  “I will bring it back soon.” Hades assured me, that he would never have let one of his demons wander around the world. “It is enough to frighten King Eurystheus: we don’t want it in his house for a moment longer than necessary to save face.”

  I struggled to regain control, but the laughter continued to escape from my the nose. If he exchanged the wife of Menete for me, to exchange that poor creature for Cerberus was a venial sin, I thought.

  The original would have made one gasp. This made me laugh even more. More than submit: I doubted that he would have dedicated the hero of the twelve labors more than a fleeting thought to how he tasted, while he swallowed. Cerberus is huge, out of reach of any mortal, and for almost all the gods. He responds only to Hades command. You can tame it, as did Orpheus and how I learned to do so myself, but thinking about taming it is pure insanity. You might as well harness the tide.

  “You did not have to deceive him. You could have shown him the truth...”

  Hades said, dryly: “The events unfolded as they were to take place.”

  A little at a time, I stopped laughing. I took up Kore to calm her a little. She had only recently been born, she deserved more peace of mind, but there was no peace for her, or for me, in the storm that was approaching. The clouds were so black that it seemed I was back on the banks of the Acheron.

  I did not ask him to explain what he was intending to do. The god of the Avernus does not respond to redundant questions, and to ask why he let a son of Zeus commit hubris in his kingdom, while a daughter of Zeus committed it at the foot of Olympus, it was the most redundant question I could ask.

  Kore had fallen asleep again. Her scent of milk and new skin was the most delicious aroma I had ever smelled in my life. Leaning on Hades’ shoulder, I felt so tired that I struggled to keep my eyes open. Laughing had used up the last of my energy.

  And the storm loomed.

  “Persephone!”

  The Triple Goddess

  My mother arrived before the storm. In the end, I was sure she would.

  She arrived preceded by the scent of ripe wheat, followed by nymphs that swept into the clearing, laden with gifts of the earth, flowers and fruits and delights. She arrived, stopping a little distance from Hades black shadow, which even erased the lightning.

  She arrived and I again felt the dreadful feeling of being cut in half.

  Six pomegranate seeds I thought in a manner that was not entirely inconsistent. I held Kore tightly, while Hades rose and stood in front of me to protect me. He took up the armor breastplate and tied it on with slow movements, challenging those who were there on the other side of the clearing, to hurry.

  Sitting on the couch, I could not see my mother. In the tense silence that precedes great battles and huge storms, I heard the click of last buckle closing. My husband’s cloak was a wall that separated me from what happened.

  “Demeter.”

  “Hades! I want to see my daughter.” For a moment I thought that he would have prevented her.

  I closed my eyes, searching within me for the energy I didn’t know where to find, but while discovering that I still possessed it – and it was not divine energy, it was a curious understood intuition, but also a mortal would find those particular qualities, in that particular situation – the black wall in front of me thinned, because the god had moved beside me.

  The ripe corn, cut hay, meadow flowers and sun-warmed skin, despite the dark clouds over us; my mother’s embrace was not a trap, and I abandoned myself to her breast, as I had many times as a child and never as a woman. I had become a woman away from her, and it was my fault, if I had been successful.

  “Oh, dear... it was this, then?”

  She drew back, without stopping to hug me. I shut my eyes to chase away the tears. Kore’s eyes were open and she was looking at us.

  “It was this,” I replied, “and more.”

  “Why didn’t you come to Eleusis, when the moment came?”

  Her tone was reproachful. I stiffened.

  “I’m too tired to answer meaningless questions, mother. I would never have placed myself in anybody’s hands, and I realized it was almost too late. To repeat the mistake with my daughter would have been unforgivable.”

  A scandalized whisper spread among the nymphs, but I looked away from my mother’s eyes. In the end, Demeter lowered hers. I respected her deeply, for this.

  “Can I see her?”

  When Kore passed from my arms to hers, the shadow of Hades covered us both. He was much less confident than me, but I said nothing. He let my mother look at the little one, to kiss her and make her laugh, so soon after she was born the umbilical cord was still fresh. She was just a baby, but there was an awareness in Kore’s eyes: she understood what was going on, even if she would not remember.

  “I feared for you, Persephone. Only to be prisoner in the realm of death, who, in my place, would have done the impossible to bring you back?”

  “I would have done what you did, mother. You had all the reasons possible in the eyes of all laws, mortal and divine. I’d be a liar to say or even think the opposite.”

  Finally a smile surfaced on her lips, and in that smile there was an abundance of the harvest awaiting mortals, after the famine. She turned to her nymphs, but they were too frightened to approach, and it was Leuka and Minthe who came up to me. Leuka had not abandoned her stick, but Minthe had more practical sense, and took the basket that Cyane handed her. She dared not return to me, poor Cyane. I had changed, I had become something she didn’t understand, and that she feared. From the beginning she had only wanted to protect me. I smiled the same smile as my mother.

  “If that day you had not shown me the white narcissus, perhaps Kore would not have come into existence. I can’t thank you enough, Cyane.”

  She served for this, and the narcissi in her hair flourished together, while the nymph smiled again. Hades, at least, had the decency not to point out that it took more than a flower, because he renounced his intentions.

  In the wake of a goddess you can always count on the delights that the world has to offer, and Minthe posed next to the closed basket, so well woven that the rain flowed over it, without wetting the inside. Demeter took it.

  “Now you must rest, Persephone. Far from Olympus, away from ambrosia, you do not need to tell me how heartbreaking it was.”

  I was about to reply that I was grateful because I really could not have stood it anymore, when Leu
ka’s scared squeak made me look up. Without a word, Hades had taken away the leafy stick from her hands, causing her to fall to the ground in fear. He set it on the ground, in front of the couch, and then taking off his cloak he spread it out over us. My mother hurried to fix the edges of the makeshift tent, to protect me and Kore from the coming rain. I was again surrounded by the scent of magnolia that cancelled all the others.

  “Thank you.” I whispered, but Hades was not looking at me. His attention was directed towards the sky.

  “Zeus is coming,” he said succinctly, “it is time. Demeter, if you think you will play me a dirty trick...”

  “You mean worse than the one you played on me?”

  “Don’t lay claim to Kore, or you will discover what it means to go against the Underworld.”

  “I will not allow you to take from the world, or me, what is most precious...”

  “Stop it!”

  It burst out of me like an imperious order, violent as aggression, without appeal like an oath made on the Styx.

  I went out angry.

  Kore began to squirm and whine in my mother’s arms. I took her back mercilessly, almost tearing her away. I rocked her to calm her, while the rain began to stab at the cloak and the gods of life and death looked at me amazed.

  “Isn’t it enough for you yet what you’ve caused? You will not cut me in half, and no one will cause a similar wrong to Kore, ever! Stop this feud immediately, because it’s not for you to decide!”

  Lightning struck very close, between Hades’ altar and the poplar grove on the other side. They were so close, the domain of my mother and my husband, separated only by a path on which the mortals walked... how could they be so blind?

  “You will not force me to choose, and for sure, you can be certain, you will not choose for me. I will not choose between my husband and my mother, no one can be forced to make such a choice. I am the daughter of Demeter, I am the wife of Hades. I’m Persephone, and this is... everything!”

  The air was full of electricity. It ran along Leuka’s stick burning the leaves, it made sparks spurt from Hades’ mantle. It ruffled the nymphs’ hair, nervously gathering it on their shoulders, twisting it tightly. I think a mortal would have been electrocuted.

  “Life has to descend into the oblivion of death, and from death new life will rise to the earth. Kore is the new spring, she has to grow: when I have weaned her, mother, I will entrust her to you for the flowering and harvest. She will need sun and ambrosia to become a complete goddess, she must know creation in its entirety, so that she can decide its fate, because she will decide. Is that clear?”

  “My daughter...” began Hades.

  “Don’t take away the love of Mother Earth! I know that love has made me who I am, and no one, not even you, will deprive Kore such a source of joy as this! She will be princess of the Avernus and spring in the world, until she reaches an age when she can choose what to be, just like I did!”

  I looked at him, daring him to contradict me, but Hades said nothing. The rain poured down on the leaves, flowed in streams along the mantle, soaking the nymphs. They didn’t care, the rain is life as much as the sun and they loved it in the same way, but the lightning was curving over us, that yes caused their worried glances. They knew what it meant.

  “Mother,” I said, “I can not choose, do not want to choose, but you know I cannot stay. I cannot be the love that comes back, love does not return. You can only reach a new love.”

  I stroked Kore, who had calmed in my arms, despite the noise of the storm.

  “Will you care for her, like you cared for me?”

  I expected her to respond yes immediately, of course, I could not wait to see the new spring grow; and no doubt it was so. But Demeter is the most beautiful, noble and pure of all goddesses. I never doubted, not then or ever.

  Instead of answering, she turned to Hades. With her most fluting voice, full of grace, without any shadow of defiance, she asked him,

  “Do you agree?”

  The Lord of the Underworld is the most unforgiving god, calm and patient. He is thoughtful and does not act on impulse. Death can be cruel, but it is never wrong. Even this I never doubted nor ever will.

  A neutral voice, and nobody but me would know what it cost him to surrender his arms, he replied:

  “Even mortals know that spending the summer in the countryside is healthy: the more reason it will be for my daughter, in whose veins flows the spring.”

  Demeter bowed her head as a sign of consent and respect. Hades did likewise, his pride had already been put to the test too; but for me it was more than enough. I did not want revenge, I did not want humiliation. I just wanted a solution.

  “But do not forsake me, Persephone,” my mother said, “I cannot stand the thought of not seeing you again.”

  “I will come. I’ll take Kore and I will come to pick her up, until she is old enough to travel alone.”

  I didn’t make any effort to conceal the irony in my voice, when I added:

  “At that point, I believe that neither you or my husband will think I am unable to go to see my mother from time to time, right?”

  Again, Hades said nothing. He looked at me, nothing else, and that too, for me, was more than enough. He knew I was his, but how much I was, I think that he only understood in that moment. Really you understand that someone belongs to you when you see they could leave, and they don’t.

  Beneath my father’s storm, in the shadow of death that claimed me for his own, he smiled. Mortals had suffered, but the suffering was over, as always it had ended: and there was a new goddess to protect them. Now there were three of us.

  Since then, we are three.

  Before giving into emotion, I asked my mother’s nymphs:

  “Were any of you born from the olive trees?”

  One of them, dressed in the colors of the earth, with the belt of olive branches and olive flowers in her hair, bowed before the tent.

  “Do you have green fronds to weave a crown?”

  My fingers had not lost their agility. I was happy to see the green twigs bend meekly and intersect with each other, the leaves did not break and or snap off, because I always had soft hands, it gave me the satisfaction of the past, while around me was seething activity. I noticed that Kore was following the weaving with her eyes, aware and responsive as any mortal baby might be, and as no goddess could escape being. When I was finished, I showed it to her.

  “Do you like it, my treasure?”

  Kore took it, turned it over between her chubby little hands, with evident interest, and did not ruin the plait or tear a single leaflet. She let it fall, when she decided she had enough, and I picked it up and handed it to the olive nymph, with the prayer of delivering it to my sister Athena.

  “She will be a great goddess,” said the nymph.

  “She already is,” I replied, in a neutral voice that Hades used to express a naked truth, “she is part of the great goddess of the earth, because we are three in one. We are the magic that is renewed every year, the buried seed sprouting, rising up in the world after the descent into the underworld. We are the realization of the hopes of mortals. We are the guide of those who travel in the world of the spirits.”

  Kore’s eyes were open and attentive. She would not remember, but she would know.

  “We are the goddess who works everywhere, because as the seasons change, we are everywhere. We are Hecate.”

  I looked without blinking at the lightning that crashed behind the trees, so strong that it even hurt the eardrums. The nymphs clung closer to each other, trembling.

  “He has arrived,” Hades said grimly.

  I had no fear. “What will happen?”

  He looked down to look at us, and I saw he had his helmet in his hands again.

  “Demeter, will think about them. I have something to talk about with Zeus.”

  “It’s not just your brother,” said my mother, “I too have a few words to say to him.”

  “And in order
not to deprive the created of your wisdom, would you leave Persephone and Kore to the mercy of the storm?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back and walked away from the clearing. I saw he pulled on his helmet, then the branches hid him.

  A rather unpleasant silence fell, while I reflected on the paradox of how life can hide from death, but the opposite is impossible: for this I could see Hades, and he could not see me. Life is always unfair, when it is opposed to death.

  Eventually, Demeter sighed.

  “Darling, of course I understand the finality of your decision, let me ask: what do you see, in him?”

  I could only sigh in response. At that moment, I admit that I did not know what to say.

  It was raining, the water ran over the nymphs, drawing arabesques on their delicate skin; but under Hades’ cloak, Kore and I were dry and safe. Demeter opened the basket, showing the lined interior, full of fruits, flowers, ambrosia, a torch ready, extinguished. She asked me if I wanted something, but I shook my head and she did not insist.

  She anointed Kore’s body with ambrosia, until my baby seemed to sparkle. Kicking harder, she opened and closed her hands with a whole new energy. The umbilical cord dried and fell. My mother dug with her fingers at the foot of the stick that supported the tent.

  As soon as she had buried it, a charge swept through the branch: the bark, blackened by thunderbolts, fell crumbling into dust, put new leaves and branches, swelled as if

  someone had pushed them out from inside, putting a foot on one side and a shoulder to the other. I felt the roots slide under me while they crossed the clearing, up to the spring.

  A moment later, a huge white poplar sheltered us from the rain, and not even a drop could fall through its branches, they were so thick and full of leaves.

  Leuka fell to her knees. It seemed that she had seen a vision, and she did not get up even when the other nymphs, with a cry of joy, shook her hair and shoulders, filling the air with droplets. In a moment, it was perfectly dry, and they surrounded thoughtful Leuka, still as wet as a puppy with tears of emotion in her eyes.