Persephone

_______________________________________

Zach Franzen, proprietor of the Portland Blog, has declared (via reader submission) that the topic of today's post is Persephone. If you are unfamiliar with the myth, you can educate yourself here: Persephone.

In any case, there were guidelines placed upon submissions -- they had to do with Persephone and they had to be done on a paper bag with a ball point pen. There you go. I made these:


"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Hades, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Hades to let Persephone go. But before he let her go Hades made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Hades beneath the earth. ... As wife of Hades, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."