And There Was Autumn

The day the king of the underworld met the daughter of the earth, the universe labored and brought forth autumn.

His fault, or hers? Or the fault of two mischief-makers: she signaled with the corner of an eye, and her blind child aimed his arrow, and Pluto knew for certain that the true hell was not in his abyss, but in letting that Persephone slip from his hands.

She was playing with her companions, gathering lilies and jasmine, when a hand reached out to her and plucked her—purer than the lily, more fragrant than the jasmine.

Before the abductor made off with his find, Ceres, goddess of the earth, had sensed what had happened:

The flowers, in her eyes, withered; the birds, in her hearing, hissed; and a gloom came over the everlasting spring.

She did not ask Zeus, nor did she return to the company of the gods: she grasped what had happened, for a mother's heart guided her better than he and they would have done.

She forsook her dominion and her godhead to search for her daughter, and to answer a distant call rattling in her ears:
— Mother...

She roamed the regions of the earth, and came upon no trace of Persephone.
She questioned the fields, and the ears of grain shook their heads. She turned aside, at morning, to the meadows of lily and jasmine, and the dew fell from their eyes as tears. And the aged trees gave her nothing, for their eyes had grown old and no longer saw who passed before them. It was as though the earth had lost its hearing and its sight: it had heard no footsteps and no screaming, and had seen no girl kicking away a kingdom to keep a lily and a jasmine.

And Ceres understood: she is a merciful goddess, who granted the earth life; and Pluto is an infidel, with hell in his hands; so the earth feared him, and kept silent—and its dissembling silence was deceit and hypocrisy.

★

And Ceres cursed the earth.

Spring vanished, fertility declined, and the good things of the earth disappeared. Drought and barrenness came over the land, the floods gurgled, and the green breezes hung their heads.

— My daughter is lost, she said; so let life be lost from the earth.

★

And in the abyss, Persephone was resisting life.
In the land of death she sought death, and did not find it.

She found no savor in any food; Pluto left no food of the earth's plants and animals that he did not offer her, and she refused it all. Her nourishment was memories and sorrows.

Until she caught sight, on the table, of a pomegranate seed. She knew it; she knew on what tree it had grown—at home, in her mother's orchard, near the garden of lily and jasmine.

And she bit into it, into the pomegranate seed, hiding a painful pang. A sip of its juice, a single sip. And Pluto guffawed. And she flung the pomegranate from her hands.

★

And then Zeus intervened: for the plants of the earth were withering, and its animals dying; and his nose longed for the smell of burnt offerings and sacrifices. He spoke with Ceres, and her face lit up. They agreed that Persephone should return to her mother, on condition that she had tasted no food in the abyss. Ceres consented, and nothing alarmed her but a mocking laugh that stormed in her ears from she knew not where.
And Pluto agreed. And for the first time hell saw him laugh, holding in his hand the remains of a pomegranate seed.

★

And Zeus was the mediator of the reconciliation.
He decreed that her mother and her husband should each keep Persephone for six months, and that she should remain between them, forever, in such alternation.
So she would come to her mother, and when she embraced her, the trees bore fruit, the birds sang, the gardens breathed fragrance, and lovers met.
And she would return to her husband, and when she slipped from her mother's embrace, the wedding of the universe turned into a funeral...

★

... And there was autumn.