The fruit’s oldest symbolic association are with fertility and reproduction. Peoples of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean region associated it with goddesses like Inanna, Kubaba (Cybele), Tanit, Astarte, Rhea, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. In the ancient Greek myth of Persephone, she eats some of the seeds given to her by the lord of the Underworld, binding her to return for half of every year. Two thousand years later, a nightingale sings in a pomegranate tree outside Juliet’s window as she awaits Romeo.