idreamtofmanderleyagain:

hooligans-holiday:

idreamtofmanderleyagain:

I swear to god Tumblr-fad! Hades/Persephone is basically the Twilight of mythic archetypes. They took a concept that was gothic, dark and strange that had interesting layers of meaning to explore (including feminist meaning)…

and then pasted simplistic, generic romantic tropes all over it that were easy for every palette to digest, removing all complexity and nuance in order to make it fit a completely different narrative than it embodied

Like I know I’m probably coming across as an elitist rn but honestly I don’t care, you took my cool shit and they sucked all color from what it originally was you bland motherfuckers

(Disclaimer: this post has been written under effect of “I’m studying spanish because I have to do guided tours about the Pantheon in Rome in spanish but I never studied that language before”, and I needed a break from that. Another disclaimer: I’m a butcher when it comes to narrating things. Third (and last) disclaimer: a huge THANK YOU to my university professor.)

I’m on board with what you said, and (without going too far into the origins of their myth, or else I might write a whole essay.), with Hades and Persephone one of the interesting thing is that the kidnapping is full of metaphors about seeing. Hades is the “unseen one”, and Persephone is also Kore, that is, apart from “the maiden”, the pupil of the eye.

As Socrates told Alcibiades, the pupil is “the most excellent part of the eye”, and not only because it’s the part that sees, but also because it’s the part of the eye where the watcher sees, in the eye of the other “the simulacrum of the watcher (himself)”. And, if we translate Socrates’ words “know yourself” as “look at yourself”, the pupil is the only way to know one’s self.

When Hades goes to kidnap Persephone, she was looking at a narcissus flower. So, she was looking at the boy who lost himself in his own reflection (who lost himself trying to know himself?). And then Hades got her, and she looked at him. The pupil met “the unseen one”, and Persephone screamed. Was that a scream of terror because she was getting kidnapped, or was it because she suddenly recognized herself (let’s keep in mind that one of the theories about the origin of her name is that it comes from
pherein phonon

, that means “to bring (or cause) death”) and she understood that she belonged to that unseen world?

I could go on for hours, but it’s better if I get back to work. Sorry if I fell a bit off topic.

WOW this is fascinating and fantastic information, thank you. I had no idea about the language aspect of it, and never thought to apply the narcissus flower into the themes of the myth. It seems so obvious now!