FIXION: Persephone and Pluto

Prosperina is an ancient Roman goddess whose story is the basis of a myth of Springtime. Her Greek goddess' equivalent is Persephone. She was the daughter of Ceres, goddess of agriculture and crops and Jupiter, the god of sky and thunder. Venus, in order to bring love to Pluto (the Roman god of the underworld, the counterpart of the Greek Hades), sent her son Cupid to hit Pluto with one of his arrows. Prosperina was in Sicily, where she was playing with some nymphs and collecting flowers, when Pluto came out from the volcano and abducted her in order to marry her and live with her in Hades, Underworld, of which he was the ruler. Her mother Ceres, the goddess of agriculture or of the Earth, went looking for her in vain to every corner of the earth, but wasn't able to find her. In her desperation Ceres angrily stopped the growth of fruits and vegetables, bestowing a malediction upon the world. Ceres refused to go back to Mount Olympus and started walking on the Earth, making a desert at every step. Worried, Jupiter sent Mercury to order Pluto (Jupiter's brother) to free Proserpina. Pluto obeyed, but before letting her go he made her eat six pomegranate seeds, because those who have eaten the food of the dead could not return to the world of the living. This meant that she would have to live six months of each year with him, and stay the rest with on Earth. This story was meant to illustrate the changing of the seasons; when Ceres welcomes her daughter back in the spring the earth blossoms, and when Proserpina must be returned to her husband it withers.