Persephone (Proserpina, Kore) was the Queen of the Underworld. The goddess is invariably portrayed robed, often wearing a tall polos, carrying a sheaf of grain and smiling demurely with the “Archaic smile.” Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden abducted and taken to the underworld by Hades, a mother’s grief at the abduction, and the return of her daughter for half of the year when as Demeter, she is the harbinger of Spring.