"Seiren" - Demeter and Persephone: A Reorientation

When one is alone, one fears the hollow echo of one’s voice. I fear the echo now, of a voice aeons-hoarse from singing, as I tell this story. A tale I have told before, that is not my tale; by telling it I will not be reconciled to my fate. But I must tell it. If this tale is mine, it is only of my failure.
This is the tale of she who I failed and will one day know again, of how she came to moisten mortal springs with tears and take her pleasures in cursing men and ruling spectres. Only one’s songs have stirred her in the aeons I have been condemned to sing, and those were the haunting ballads of Orpheus. This how she became the Iron Queen, and how she was before when she still demurely smiled: Maiden of Antenor, Proserpine, Kore, Persephone, my friend…

I want to state that it was spring, but it couldn’t have been. There were no seasons in that age. This is their tale as well. I remember the narcissi were blooming, I remember that clearly. We were in Enna, in Sicily. Kore, as I and my sisters called her, was young then – for a goddess. Many gods had tried to woo her, but her mother had rejected them all. Sometimes I wonder if that was for the best; perhaps it would have altered both our fates… selfish thoughts. She and her mother were close, very close. Was I jealous? I don’t remember. Aeons dull such feelings. But I remember it was I who suggested we go to Enna to pick the narcissi in bloom. Kore loved narcissi, but Enna was very far from her mother. She hadn’t wanted to go so far.
But we went to Enna—Kore, my two sisters and myself—and wandered the countryside of Sicily’s navel. My sisters left us alone. She was so beautiful and radiant. I remember how I used to watch her. I remember how I sang to her, before my voice took on its rapine euphony. No, perhaps it had it even then, unbeknownst to me. Perhaps that song which I was to sing again and again was what condemned her. But she loved my singing. It was my pride, my joy.
We spent most of that last day alone. Hyperion alone beheld us. The last day… I didn’t know it was the last day then…
Eventually we met up with my sisters, and the four of us continued our search for the narcissi. The day was waning and Kore wanted to return, but I insisted on finding the flowers. (Just one more minute, one more moment…) So we searched, and the shadows lengthened, and eventually we found one, I found one, weeping. I called to her; she came. I remember her smile, that beautiful smile, so radiant it burns me to recall it, as she knelt besides the bloom as it wept, as she reached out and took it in her alabaster hand. Oh gods, how that memory is tainted for me. That last smile. She plucked it, with her pristine hands at my behest. Mine! I was the one, me, my fault, my sin, not hers, and yet I could do nothing!
She fell at that moment. The earth opened and consumed her, and I did nothing, could do nothing. What could I have done? It was so fast. Hyperion saw, as I later learned, for he sees all. The earth swallowed her, down among the dead and the dank and the dark, my pure and radiant Persephone; my Kore; my guilt.
(Why didn’t he take me? Was I just not pure enough for his tastes, that king of shadows?)
I searched through the night, with my sisters. (It was not their sin, why did they suffer? Why was it only they who cast themselves onto the rocks when Odysseus passed? Why am I the only one to remain? I know why: because I am a coward, because I cannot face her even now, when aeons segregate us.) But we searched and scoured and cried the night away, perhaps I more desperately then my siblings. We found nothing, and I returned to Kore’s mother full of sin. My sisters did not deserve their fate.
It was that day that we were bound to sing, and so my greatest joy became my greatest pain. I have never seen Kore since that day; I learnt what happened from Hermes. Even when she returns to her mother’s side for half the year I do not see her. I cannot see her. And why would she want to see me, who led her to the place of her fall? I who condemned her to her torment: once-friend and companion. I doubt she would recognise me. I am hideous now, hideous and hoarse from singing. But this is not my story.

It was Hades who had taken her, I later found, down to his hidden halls beneath the world. The earth bleed dry at her descent; Demeter could not be consoled. She eventually learnt from Hyperion what had happened, though while he sees all he did not tell her everything. I am grateful for that. Perhaps he pities me, gazing down at me upon the rocks crying to the sea.
Hades held her captive for a long time. The gods tried to bargain with him, but he would not listen. What did he care for the earth? Its desolation filled his halls and Hades always loved it when his kingdom waxed. They said that Kore ate nothing, slowly wasting away. She would not wed him. The moons went by. Everything died. And all the time I sung. I could do no other: a solemn requiem, a hollow echo.
Eventually they rescued Kore from her prison. Hecate and Hermes did it, smuggling her up from the avernine halls to the embracing arms of her mother. But she was no longer Kore. She had eaten six pomegranate seeds, only six, but anyone who eats in Hades’ halls becomes his property. That was the Law. So when Hades came charging to reclaim their prize, they struck a deal. Six months below, six months above. His property. How could they… to her?
But it was my fault. If I had never taken her selfishly to Enna she would not have fallen. She is different now, I hear. She doesn’t smile. Her gaze is empty and pitiless. My sisters have descended, and daily I send hapless sailors to meet her through their watery graves. I cannot face her, even if she no longer knows me for who I was, even if my curse and the millennia I have sung have twisted me.
(My fault, my sin, my crime, my passion…)

I am old now. Nymphs are not immortal. I will have to see her. Her stare will fall to me. I look at my reflection in the water. What remains of the me that was? The bones of my sisters have long worn away. I open my mouth and listen once again to the hollow echo of a voice aeons-hoarse from singing. Endlessly singing the song I sang to her that day beneath Hyperion’s gaze: Maiden of Antenor, Proserpine, Kore, Persephone, my love… forgive me.