Many moral lessons can be inferred from the myth of
"Proserpine and Ceres." First, love may cause those afflicted to do strange things.
Cupid shoots Hades, the God of the Underworld, with an arrow. Hades essentially goes
after the first girl he see, Proserphine. She is gathering flowers in a field and he
drives her to the underworld where he ravishes
her.
Proserphine's mother, Ceres, Goddess of Fertility,
searches the world over for her, cannot find her, and lapses into malaise. All the
plants start to wither so Zeus intervenes. As long as Proserphine has not eaten anything
in the Underworld, she is free to leave. However, Proserphine is honest and confesses to
eating three promegranate seeds. Consequently, she is doomed to remain in the Underworld
half of the year and is allowed to live with her mother the other half. When Proserphine
lives in Hades, plants die. The outcome explains the
seasons.
Proserphine displays honesty in acknowledging what
she ate.
Ceres shows how deep maternal despair affects
all.
Hades demonstrates that bad behavior usually will
taint love so he is unfulfilled for half of every year.
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