When Persephone ate the fruit of the underworld, she was trapped.
Is that real? Perhaps a metaphor for something?
Turns out it's a metaphor. The fruit of the underworld is resentment of the living. If you visit the underworld but absorb its bitter envy of life, clearly you're going to have difficulty returning to a proper living state. Indeed, we can say that's what happened to Lucifer. Prometheus showed Man how to cook on the fire he stole, and demonstrated it was good to eat....haha, oops bruh....
Persephone reported that the fruit of the underworld was delicious. It's hard to see any way that could have been true.
There is one way: if she had already partaken of the resentment before Hades bridenapped her. If you fill your mouth with salt, you lose your ability to taste salt, unable to discriminate between brine and fresh water for example. Or: the fish can't feel that it's wet. If cause and effect were reversed, if Persephone was kidnapped from where she didn't belong to return her to her rightful place, then perhaps she was unable to taste the sourness and bitterness of the fruit of the underworld, having already saturated herself in those juices.
For the record I get two pings for visitors. Maybe three. Nonzero, but not very many at all lost among 8 billion natives. They're not even guaranteed to be human, come to think.
Some authors suggest that gods have more difficulty fathoming the minds of animals. Certainly, it is difficult for nonhumans to overinduluge in the propaganda. Insulation.
Still, it seems journeys to the underworld are still undertaken. May they safely find their way home.
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