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Erich Lessing

Flinging an urn, the goddess Persephone joins the battle against the Giants. Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and his consort Demeter, goddess of bountiful harvests. As Persephone grew into a woman, she attracted the attention of Hades, brother of Zeus and king of the underworld. One day Persephone stopped to pick a narcissus from a field of flowers; as she did, the field suddenly split open and Hades emerged to sweep Persephone to his subterranean kingdom. Persephone eventually grew to love her abductor, but Demeter was inconsolable; she punished the earth with bitter cold and terrible winds. The resulting famine threatened to destroy the earth’s inhabitants. A compromise was eventually reached in which Persephone would divide her time between Hades and Demeter; when Persephone is with Hades the earth suffers from the cold of winter, but when she returns to her mother the world bursts into the bloom of springtime.