Pomegranate

The typical autumn fruit pomegranate is linked to Greek mythology with beautiful and fascinating stories. Symbol of abundance and fertility, it also represents death and rebirth and you will understand this from the various legends that have been handed down for centuries, also accompanied by traditions that are still respected in some countries today.

Let's start with the oldest myth of Greece linked to the story of Orion, a skilled hunter as well as the largest and brightest constellation of the celestial star, born from the urine of Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes who one day stopped around the countryside of Boeotia from a humble farmer to rest. The farmer named Ireo unaware of having the Olympians in front of him, treated them with the utmost respect and as a sign of gratitude the Gods once revealed their identity asked him to express a wish that they would have fulfilled. The man who had just become a widower, wanted a child but without having to remarry out of respect for his beloved missing wife and it was so that Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes on a bull's skin that the man had sacrificed for them, made over their urine, then ordering Ireo to bury it and recover it after nine months. Ireo did so and when he opened the skin inside he found a beautiful Orion baby. The Goddess Diana became his mentor and elevated him to the minister of his hunting cult. Orion grows up and marries Side a young woman so vain to the point of claiming to be even better than Hera's wife of Zeus, and so Orion decided to punish her for having offended the Goddess, throwing her into Hades where she turned into a pomegranate.

Another version instead concerns the Goddess Aphrodite, a symbol of beauty, who gave rise to this beautiful fruit when it was on the  Cyprus island, making it then a sacred symbol both for the inhabitants and for the Goddess herself.

Let's continue with the legends of Dionysus when he was still a child, he was kidnapped by the Titans by order of Hera mad with jealousy for the birth of the child yet another betrayal of her husband Zeus with Semele princess of Thebes. Little Dionysus, is torn to pieces by the Titans and put to boil in a large pot, but a drop of his blood falls to the ground and the first pomegranate tree was born from the earth.

We then continue with the story of Persephone/Kore, the young daughter of Demeter in turn daughter of Cronus and Hera, sister of Zeus from whom she had Persephone. Legend has it that one day, playing with nymphs in a wood, the girl stopped to pick up a narcissus and the God Hades, the God of the underworld, who fell madly in love with Persephone, abducted her and took her to the underworld. After a long search, Demeter discovers that her daughter is held by Hades and blinded by anger and pain, she takes revenge against the Gods by not making anything grow on earth, starving men and consequently making the Gods lack the sacrifices that they were usually dedicated to them by humans. Zeus at this point sends Hermes to Hades to get Persephone back to her mother, but before leaving her he forces her to eat six pomegranate grains, food from the kingdom of the dead, forcing her to have to return a few months to him to survive. Demeter then made the good season return for the period in which her daughter was with her and the bad season when she was forced to return to Hades and this also explains the meaning of the seasons in Greek mythology.

The story of the beautiful and fertile Niobe, queen of Libya who gave birth to six sons and six daughters instead tells that for her pride, defining herself better than Leto lover of Zeus who gave him only two children Apollo and Artemis, she was terribly punished with the killing of the males by the God Apollo and the daughters by the hand of the Goddess Artemis and finally Niobe was transformed into a rock where a fountain, source of life for a single plant, the pomegranate, flows.

The last myth is linked to Agdistis, a figure between the divine and the intersex human born from the sperm of Zeus who fell on a stone of Mount Agados while he wanted to mate with the Great Mother Goddess of nature. He was rejected by all the Gods because he was wild and extremely strong, but one day Dionysus who decided to educate him and make him less dangerous made him drunk and fell asleep in the woods tied his member with a rope. When Adgistis woke up to free himself he shot so hard he emasculated himself and a pomegranate grew from his blood. In the woods there was also Nana, daughter of the God Sangarios who, picking the fruit generated by the tree and putting it in her lap, gave life to the god Attis.

Speaking instead of tradition in the past but in some areas of Greece it still happens, brides weave sprigs of pomegranate into their hair considered a sign of abundance and fertility as well as a highly aphrodisiac fruit. Another custom during the wedding is to break a pomegranate on the ground, and to plant a tree in the garden of the newlyweds as a wish for luck and prosperity. Finally, in Greece on New Year's Eve it is a good omen to treat yourself to a pomegranate fruit as a wish for physical and economic well-being.

Who imagined that a simple fruit could have such fascinating stories around it, but on the other hand we are talking about Greece, the cradle of civilization, of democracy and which never ceases to amaze me.