Answer: Before leaving the underworld, Persephone had been persuaded to eat four seeds of a pomegranate. In ancient mythology, to eat the fruit of one's captor meant that one would have to return to that captor or country, so Persephone was doomed to return to the underworld for four months of the year. Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, preoccupied with her grief. The seasons halted; living things ceased their growth, then began to die.
