Encyclopedia of Opinion
Question
Was Persephone kidnapped?
Position‹2 of 2
Persphone was not kidnapped
Argument‹2 of 2

Persephone chose to eat the fruit

Everyone knew that eating anything from Hades would tie them to the Underworld, including Persephone. Her own choice to eat the fruit sealed her fate.

The argument

Not only did Persephone willingly eat the fruit, but she seemed as if she wanted to. Various myths state that Persephone had the chance to get out, but seemed to eat them just before she left. According to one source, "We know she didn’t do it because she was hungry. It says in the Illiad that gods do not require bread or wine as mankind does". Persephone didn't need to eat the seeds, but the fact that she chose to infers her love. She very selectively ate six seeds-she knew what she was doing. Persephone wanted to come back to him. She was not kidnapped.

Premises

[P1]Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds willingly, just before her chance to leave the underworld. [P2] As a goddess she did not need food, so eating the seeds was a deliberate choice rather than a necessity. [P3] Choosing to eat exactly six seeds shows she knowingly bound herself to return to Hades out of love. [C] Therefore, Persephone was not kidnapped — she chose to stay with Hades.

Counter-arguments

Perhaps she just felt bad. Perhaps she wanted to keep Hades company, because she pitied the poor lonely soul that he was.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The sources do not agree: in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter it is Hades who gives her the seed, and several accounts describe the eating as done by stealth or under compulsion rather than as a free choice at the threshold. [Rejecting P2] Not needing food establishes nothing about motive — the myth turns on the rule that eating in the underworld binds one to it, so the act's significance lies in the rule rather than in appetite or affection. [Rejecting C] Even granting a deliberate act, something done after an abduction does not make the abduction consensual, and the same texts describe her seizure and Demeter's search in terms of force.