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DEMETER, DÊMÊTÊR or DEMETRA is the Greek goddess of agriculture and the green earth, the cycle of life and death, and protector of marriage. She is the Roman equivalent of Ceres and is often confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. The central myth of Demeter is her relationship with Persephone, her daughter and own younger self. Demeter' epithet is Chloe.
In the Olympian pantheon, Persephone, while playing with some nymphs, was abducted her from the earth by Hades, God of the Underworld, and brought kept prisoner in his realm. Demeter changed the nymphs that had been with Persphone into the Sirens as punishment for not having stopped the abduction, and the natural world began to perish while Demeter desparately searched for her daughter. Zeus eventually forced Hades to return Persephone by sending Hermes to retrieve her. But before she was released, Hades tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return six months each year. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the earth flourished with vegetation. But the other six months, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth would be become barren. This is the mythological origin of our current seasons: Summer, Spring, Winter, and Fall.
DEMETER
