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PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE POMEGRANATE IN HISTORY AND MYTH  
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Demir Alp
August 29, 2025
JSTOR DAILY
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_ The pomegranate shows a marked versatility in its cultural
connotations and connections. _

The intrigues of pomegranates extend beond the culinary,
jeannetteferrary.photoshelter.com

 

The pomegranate has been used as a remedy for many ailments. According
to Pliny the Elder, a first-century naturalist, THE PLANT WAS A
CURE-ALL AND HAD THE POWER TO ALLEVIATE A WIDE VARIETY OF HEALTH
CONCERNS
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Pliny listed it as a key ingredient for twenty-six different remedies.
In a similar vein, authors of early modern herbals such as John
Gerard(e) INSTRUCTED THEIR READERS TO USE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE
PLANT [[link removed]]—its juice,
flowers, rind, and seeds—to address stomach concerns, dysentery,
dental health, wounds and bleeding, and menstrual health.

This versatility becomes even more interesting in light of HUMORAL
THEORY
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which explains illness as an imbalance of hot, cold, wet, or dry
qualities in the body, TREATED THROUGH PLANTS OF THE OPPOSITE NATURE
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However, across herbals throughout history, the pomegranate was used
in seemingly contradictory ways. Dioscorides (40–90 CE), in his _DE
MATERIA MEDICA_
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marked the sweet pomegranate’s ability to produce heat around the
stomach and warned against using it to treat a fever, a belief which
continued into the early modern period. On the other hand, the
sixteenth-century herbalist, Rembert Dodoens, LAUDED THE COOLING
EFFECTS OF ITS JUICE ON THE STOMACH
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These contrasting uses don’t appear to be antithetical to one
another. Hieronymus Bock, in his _KREÜTER BUCH_
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both heating and cooling effects in context by building finer
distinctions between types of pomegranates. In a recent study, A. R.
Ruis highlights THE NUMEROUS INVOCATIONS IN EARLY MODERN MEDICINE OF
THE POMEGRANATE AS A PLANT CAPABLE OF RESTORING BALANCE BETWEEN SUCH
OPPOSING STATES OR QUALITIES
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a characteristic that persists in the fruit’s symbolism.

THE POMEGRANATE IN MYTH

On the island of Cyprus stands tall a pomegranate tree, holy and
unique. In _DEIPNOSOPHISTAE
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records a dialogue on the pomegranate, noting that “VENUS DID
HERSELF PLANT THIS THE PARENT TREE ON CYPRUS
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Because it was the only tree that the goddess cared to plant, the
pomegranate became closely linked to beauty and love, which she
represents.

Likewise, in Athens, one encounters the fruit again on a sacred
representation of a deity. In Pausanias’s account, A STATUE OF
HERA, THE GODDESS OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, STANDS WITH A SCEPTER IN ONE
HAND AND A POMEGRANATE IN THE OTHER [[link removed]].
Pausanias writes that he’s unable to elaborate on the fruit since
it’s meant to be a holy mystery. As Carl Kerényi explains
in _ELEUSIS: ARCHETYPAL IMAGE OF MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
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this omission is an _aporrhetoteros logos_, a story “told under
strict injunction of silence,” allowing it to gain even more
significance in the life of the goddess. Kerényi shows how the
pomegranate goes beyond a mere religious symbol, noting its role as an
object of worship as evidenced by votive offerings of terracotta
pomegranates in one of Hera’s sanctuaries. Thus, a fruit already
bound to love through Aphrodite now takes on the sanctity of marriage,
motherhood, and childbirth through Hera.

In the Homeric “HYMN TO DEMETER
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IN ABOUT THE SEVENTH CENTURY BCE
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Hades kidnaps Persephone with Zeus’s permission (or at his behest)
and flees with her to the underworld. Demeter, Persephone’s mother
and the goddess of agriculture, is consequently struck by a deep grief
and leaves the fields barren, making that year a “most terrible one
for mortals, all over the Earth.” Zeus decides to intervene and let
Persephone return to her mother on the condition that she hadn’t
eaten anything from the underworld. Hermes is sent to inform Hades and
Persephone of this decision. As he hears that Persephone would be
allowed back, Hades gives her the seeds of a pomegranate, and, in
tasting the honey-sweet fruit, Persephone unknowingly binds herself to
him as his wife in the underworld.

The seeds seal Persephone’s fate as one who must spend part of every
year with Hades among the dead. As she describes this damning moment
to Demeter, Persephone says that Hades “put into my hand the berry
of the pomegranate, that honey-sweet food, and he compelled me
by _biē_  to eat of it.” In this telling, the ruby-red seeds
become synonymous with imprisonment. Despite this, it’s difficult to
separate the fruit from its previous symbolic associations with love
and marriage through Aphrodite and Hera.

A close reading of the account reveals that the seeds of the
pomegranate were “stealthily” given to Persephone but not forced
on her. When paired with the enticing epithet “honey-sweet,” one
must reconsider Persephone’s agency and perhaps regard the fruit not
only as imprisonment but also as temptation. Analyzing the word choice
around Hades in the broader context of the Homeric tradition, John L.
Myres, in “Persephone and the Pomegranate,” SUGGESTS THAT HADES
MIGHT HAVE USED THE POMEGRANATE AS A LOVE CHARM, DRAWING PERSEPHONE TO
HIMSELF
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When Persephone partakes of the fruit, she begins to be attracted to
her husband and feel love for him. In the layered interpretation of
such myths, the fruit encapsulates love and beauty through enticement,
the sanctity of marriage through consecration, and the idea of
imprisonment, manipulation, and the underworld.

THE POMEGRANATE IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITION

When the fruit appears in the Abrahamic tradition, it remains in
conversation with its ancient pagan connotations. In the SONG OF
SONGS
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referred to as the Song of Solomon or the Canticle of Canticles), a
poem in the Hebrew Bible about two lovers, the fruit remains connected
to beauty, love, and enticement.

“YOUR TEMPLES BEHIND YOUR VEIL ARE LIKE THE HALVES OF A POMEGRANATE
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reads Song of Songs 4:3. Significantly, the lovers question WHETHER
POMEGRANATE TREES ARE IN BLOOM
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they talk of their love. Here, the maturing of the fruit implicitly
symbolizes the possibility of their love being realized, suggesting
marriage or a loss of chastity and recalling the function of the fruit
in Persephone’s story. However, to better understand the fruit’s
role in this story, one must remain open to other conversations and
how their meanings imbue the fruit.

Asaph Goor suggests that the pomegranate is unique, BECAUSE UNLIKE
OTHER BIBLICAL PLANTS, ITS MAIN ROLE IS AN AESTHETIC ONE
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However, its aesthetics go beyond simple beauty; its use in religious
imagery throughout the Bible suggests the presence of a resonant
symbolic association related to its form. For instance, the fruit’s
holiness is signaled in the Pentateuch. It appears in Exodus
28:33–35, which calls for the ornamentation of an ephod (a
priest’s robe) with pomegranates stitched in blue, purple, and
scarlet along the garment’s hem. The pomegranate appears again in
the decorations of the bronze capitals in 1 Kings 7:17–21.

Moses de León, in his thirteenth-century cabalistic text _SEFER
HA-RIMMON_
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Book of the Pomegranate)_, _characterizes the pomegranate AS A SIGN
OF THE _SHEKHINAH_
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the presence of God. The pomegranate contains all the commandments of
God in its seeds; the divine inhabits it. In this realization of
sanctity and wisdom, de León establishes a link to the Song of Songs
and suggests that even those who are empty are filled with the
commandments, like the pomegranate. This connection between the fruit
and inherent holiness adds new meaning to the Song of Songs, where the
love between two people can unknowingly be a divine revelation.

THE POMEGRANATE IN ART

THE POMEGRANATE HAS APPEARED IN ART ACROSS MILLENNIA
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writes Hope Johnston. In sixteenth-century England, it ornamented
royal charters, illuminated manuscripts, and book bindings. Its
inclusion in the badge of CATHERINE OF ARAGON
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referred “specifically to her upbringing in Spain,” notes
Johnston, where the _granada _(pomegranate) was seen as an emblem of
the victory of “Catholic monarchs” over the Moors. Even though she
became queen of England when she married Henry VIII, Catherine
retained the pomegranate as her personal emblem, marking her as a
Spanish princess in perpetuity.

When the fruit shows up in art of the Italian Renaissance in the same
period, it proves again to be a multi-dimensional symbol. This is the
case one encounters in Sandro Botticelli’s _MADONNA DELLA MELAGRANA
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of the Pomegranate)_, _which depicts a recurring motif in fifteenth-
and sixteenth-century Italian art. At the center of the tondo, the
Virgin Mary holds both a pomegranate and an infant Jesus Christ. The
title that has become attached to the painting over time curiously
characterizes the Virgin Mary by the fruit, perhaps in recognition of
her chastity, especially when considered in the context of
Persephone’s myth. Yet, the fruit carries a broader meaning as well,
as the Christ child also intimately interacts with it, grasping and
contemplating it.

To unpack this symbolism William Suida analyses the Dreyfus
Madonna, A PAINTING SOMETIMES ATTRIBUTED TO LEONARDO DA VINCI,
SOMETIMES TO LORENZO DE CREDI
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Though the figures are disposed differently than in Botticelli’s
painting, the motif is similar, showing Mary holding an open
pomegranate in one hand while propping up the baby Jesus with the
other. Here, however, the child offers a kernel to his mother. Suida
suggests that Christ’s interest in the seeds was rooted in Pope
Gregory I’s invocation of a simile in which a pomegranate is used to
express the unity of the Church. On the other hand, James Hall,
tracking the history of the pomegranate as a symbol, PROPOSES THAT IT
REPRESENTS THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
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This latter interpretation recalls Persephone’s yearly return from
the underworld or ANOTHER MYTH
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which a pomegranate sprouts from drops of Dionysus’s blood after his
death, heralding his resurrection.

Thus, Botticelli’s Jesus, who stares at the fruit in deep thought,
perhaps prophesies his own death and return, as opposed to the child
in the Dreyfus Madonna, who proudly shows the unity of his church to
his mother. Yet as she faces the kernels and feels the rind of the
fruit—in both paintings—the Virgin Mary is forced to contemplate
her motherhood and her chastity.

The pomegranate, used heavily in early medicine and at times for
opposing aims, can resolve this contradiction by having a balancing
quality. To consider the plant’s symbolic associations as separate
or opposing is misleading, however; through the plant, different
myths, religions, and art traditions can coexist, making the
pomegranate one of the most complex cultural symbols one can study.

* fruit consumption
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* pomegranate
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