The Rape of Persephone
Persephone (Proserpina), daughter of Zeus and Demeter, is abducted by Hades to be queen of the underworld. Demeter, goddess of the earth, shattered by grief, refuses to carry out her duties until she recovers her daughter. But Persephone has eaten a pomegranate seed, which will bind her eternally to the underworld.
Zeus decreed a compromise: Persephone would spend four months (six, according to other sources) on earth with her mother, and the remainder of the year she would remain in the underworld. This story explains the death and annual rebirth inherent in the cycle of nature: when Persephone is absent, Demeter is too sorrowful to fulfil her obligations, but upon her return, Demeter works with renewed vigour.
The myths of Persephone are of great complexity, because their deeper meanings reach into the very core of ancient Greek religion. In one version of the myth, Zeus falls in love with her and seduces her by taking the form of a serpent, coiling around her body. From that union Dionysus (Bacchus) will be born. In the most widely known version, she is abducted by Hades, but a Hades bearing the traits of Dionysus in his archaic role as lord of the underworld.