While staying as Hades’s guest,
Core fasts. She refuses to eat for 10 days. At this next bit the myth changes
based on who is telling it. Some myths say that she broke down eating 7
pomegranate seeds. Others say 6, still others say 3. One myth even says that
she didn’t eat any seeds, but that Hades’s gardener swore that she did. This is
important as it becomes part of the deal for her release. See, technically,
eating something from the underworld makes her part of the underworld.
This isn’t said until after she
eats (or doesn’t eat) the pomegranate seeds, but it would explain why she is
fasting. As the daughter of Demeter (the aforementioned goddess of
agriculture), she would understand the significance of eating the seeds, which
would explain the fasting. Some might write this off as her sorrow for being
taken from her mother, but it doesn’t explain everything, nor does it explain
why she waited until she heard of her rescue (in the versions where she at the
seeds).
The version
of the myth where the gardener is lying would make sense in order to trap her
there as part of the deal (which we’ll get into next week). However, Core
doesn’t call him out on it. This would be a simple case of he said/she said,
but she doesn’t say anything, which is odd. As the daughter of Demeter, her
word would certainly carry more weight than that of one of Hades’s servants,
yet she never brings it up, either because she really did eat the seeds or because the idea fit into her plans.