In Greek mythology, Persephone was the Queen of the Underworld, the Kore or young maiden, and the parthenogenic daughter of Demeter—and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus. In the Olympian version she also becomes the consort of Hades when he becomes the deity that governs the underworld.

Persephone (Greek: Περσεφόνη, Persephónē) is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature. The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia. In other dialects she was known under various other names: Persephassa, Persephatta, or simply Kore (Greek: κόρη, "girl, maiden" ) (when worshipped in the context of Demeter and Kore). Plato calls her Pherepapha (Φερέπαφα) in his Cratylus "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion."

The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who use the dialectal variant Proserpina. Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, and as a revived Roman Proserpina, she became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance.

In Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed. She may be carrying a sheaf of grain and smiling demurely with the "Archaic smile" of the Kore of Antenor.

The figure of Persephone is well-known today. Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden, a mother's grief at the abduction, and joy at the return of her daughter. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.

In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles, c. 490�?30 BC, describing a correspondence between four deities and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone. "Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus. And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears"

Of the four deities of Empedocles's elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo�?Nestis is a euphemistic cult title�?for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the Dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was euphemistically named, simply as, Kore, "The Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld.

In the Odyssey, commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BC, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to her as the Iron Queen. Her central myth, for all its emotional familiarity, also was the tacit context of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants—an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes beneath her dread gaze (Kerenyi 1960, 1967).