1. UNIT 7. The Rape of Proserpina
CLASSICAL STUDIES
TEACHER: ANA MARTINEZ

2. What’s in a Name? Roman Name: Proserpina Greek Name: Persephone
From proserpere meaning “to emerge”
Proserpina is a type of pomegranate
Father: Jove
Mother: Ceres (the goddess of good harvest)
What’s in a Name?

3. Venus sees Pluto and tells her son Cupid to shoot him with an arrow so that she (love) can be the ruler of all the universe.
She tells Cupid to join Proserpina and Pluto who is Jove’s brother, and thus, Proserpina’s uncle.
Cupid shoots the arrow and pierces Pluto’s heart.

4. A De-flowering occurs…
Virginal Proserpina was picking flowers with her friends by the pool, Pergus. Her basket was full because she was eager to not let her friends beat her.
Pluto saw her and rushed toward her and raped her.
The flowers fell from the basket and Prosperina was just as concerned with losing the flowers as she was with being raped.
Prosperina gets de-flowered?

5. The Rape of Prosperina by Luca Giordano

6. Pluto took Prosperina and began his journey back to the underworld.
Through the deep lakes
Through the boiling Palician pools
Beyond the city of the Corinthian men
There was a bay between the waters of Arethusa and Cyane.
Cyane, the most famous of all Sicilian nymphs, rose from the water and tried to stop Pluto, but Pluto opened the pool to its deepest depths and plunged down to Hell.
Cyane mourned for both Prosperina and the new crater formed by Pluto. She mourned until she turned into water.

7. Ceres Looks for Her Daughter
Ceres looked everywhere for her daughter.
Ceres continued to search and came back to Sicily where she went to the pool of Cyane but Cyane could not speak. She could only offer evidence—Proserpina’s girdle.
Ceres Looks for Her Daughter

8. Ceres began to realize the fate of Proserpina and blamed Sicily because that is where she found evidence of her loss. She cursed the land, making everything dry and barren.
Arethusa rose from the Elean pool to beg for Ceres’ mercy.
Arethusa told Ceres that she saw Proserpina in the underworld and that she was the queen.

9. Ceres begs Jove to bring Proserpina back.
Jove said that Pluto did it out of love but he will bring Proserpina back on one condition.
SHE MUST, IN THE WORLD BELOW, HAVE EATEN NOTHING, TASTED NO FOOD—SO HAVE THE FATES ENACTED.
BUT, Prosperina ate seven (six) seeds from the pomegranate and Ascalaphus tattled so that Proserpina could not return.
Proserpina, in her anger, turned him into a screech owl.

10. Jove allows for Proserpina to come back to the upper-world for part of the year.
Ceres is happy with the deal.
This is the reason for Springtime: when Proserpina comes back to her mother, Ceres decorates the Earth with welcoming flowers, but when in autumn she has to go back to Hades, nature loses any color.
A Deal…