介绍： Though she was furious with Metanira for the interruption, Demeter’s anger quickly turned to sadness. She decided not to punish the family for their reaction. She had, after all, loved the baby, and although he could never become immortal without continuing the ambrosia treatments, he could still be honored,...

介绍： Though she was furious with Metanira for the interruption, Demeter’s anger quickly turned to sadness. She decided not to punish the family for their reaction. She had, after all, loved the baby, and although he could never become immortal without continuing the ambrosia treatments, he could still be honored, since a goddess had been his nurse.
Demeter told the king and queen to have the people of Eleusis build a temple in her honor. While it was being built, she told the townspeople how to grow corn and how to perform special ceremonies at her temple. In this way, the town continued to appease and pay tribute to the inconsolable goddess, whose grief once again became focused on her lost daughter.
When the temple at Eleusis was completed, Demeter went to live there, far from Mount Olympus and the other gods and goddesses. Sadly, she sat silently in her temple for an entire year. While she sat, no crops grew, and the people became hungrier with every passing day. Soon it seemed like every living thing on earth was in danger of starving.
Zeus feared that Demeter’s mourning was becoming destructive. He begged her to end the famine, but Demeter repeatedly refused the request. She said she would never grant her life-giving power to the earth so long as Persephone remained so far away in the Underworld. Finally, Zeus realized that Hades would have to give up his bride so that the world could be healed. With a heavy heart, Zeus sent Hermes, the official messenger of the gods, to the Underworld to deliver a message to Hades.
When Hermes reached the Underworld, he found Hades and his bride sitting side by side on their thrones. Persephone looked miserable. She was weeping because she missed her mother and the world above. When she heard Hermes’s message from Zeus, she cried out in joy. Hades knew that he had no choice but to obey Zeus and let Persephone go home to her mother. He begged his wife not to think of him harshly. Hades said, “My beloved wife, remember that here you are the queen, the most powerful woman of all. As the queen of the Underworld, you even have power over the living, because you have control over what happens to people when they die. Because of this, you have the power to be merciful, which is the greatest gift of all. Do not think ill of me or this kingdom when you are far away from here.”
Reluctantly, Hades prepared to let Persephone go, but before she left, he gave her four pomegranate seeds to eat. Hades knew, although his wife did not, that if she ate anything from the world of the dead, she would have to return to his kingdom someday.
Having eaten the seeds, Persephone rode happily out of the Underworld with Hermes. When their chariot finally reached Eleusis, Persephone joyfully embraced her mother. The mother and daughter laughed and cried, and talked as they had before. Finally, Demeter asked her daughter if she had eaten anything during her stay in the Underworld. Persephone replied, “Mother, what a strange question. All I ate was four pomegranate seeds. Why should that matter?”
Demeter became so upset by this news that she took her daughter directly to Zeus to discuss what could be done. On the way to Mount Olympus, Demeter explained to Persephone that because she had eaten food from the Underworld—the seeds of the pomegranate—she would have to return there. That rule was unbreakable.
Zeus had witnessed the happiness of mother and daughter when they were reunited, and now he could see the unbearable sadness in their eyes at the thought of having to part again. Nevertheless, Zeus had to respect the rules of the universe. Therefore, to follow the rules, the king of the gods decreed that Persephone must return to the Underworld. However, Zeus offered a compromise: instead of returning permanently to live in the Underworld, Persephone need only live there for four months out of the year, one month for each pomegranate seed she had eaten.