This essay was written to accompany a lecture on the Long Hymn to Aphrodite. It follows the translation and editing of Stephen M. Trzaskoma in the Anthology of Classical Myth (Hackett). This is a very useful text for students. The translations are clean, and each hymn includes a helpful introduction and analysis. It also contains full versions of Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days.
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Translations of the hymn, unless otherwise stated, are from Homeric Hymns. (trans. A. Lang, updated and modified). In Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, 2nd ed (Kindle edition). Stephen M. Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet (eds.). Hackett (2016).
Attic red-figure hydria attributed to the Niobid Painter (c. 480-450 BCE). MET 41.162.98.
Demeter (left) and Persephone (right) prepare Triptolemos (center) for his journey across Greece to bring the gift of agriculture to humans as a thanks for his family's kindness to Demeter in the myth told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Demeter is one of the easier female Olympians to identify visually. As the grain goddess, she often carries a sheaf of wheat (above) or a cornucopia (not pictured). The torch is also a common attribute of both Demeter and Persephone (explained in the Hymn to Demeter!). Finally, sometimes her crown is made of an earthy, thatched material or fruit, another association of the goddess with agriculture.
In the ancient world, the Homeric Hymns were thought to have been composed by Homer, the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey. Exactly when this belief developed is difficult to speculate, but it’s safe to say it was the dominant perspective in the later periods of ancient Greece (Hellenistic and Roman). The surviving Homeric Hymns were collected sometime in the 1st century BCE[1] and modern scholars date their composition during a significant span of Greek history, predominately in the Archaic period, between 700-500 BCE, but as late as the Hellenistic period (323-150 BCE).[2]
While we know little about when the hymns became associated with the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey, we know why they were so. The hymns are composed in the “Homeric Style” or meter, called dactylic hexameter.[3] A dactyl is a “note,” and there are a certain number of notes per line, hex- (hexameter) or six. Although all languages have a cadence or rhythm to them, these hymns are songs, which in the case of the Homeric epics would have been accompanied by musical instruments such as the lyre. Modern choral hymns are similarly accompanied by musical instruments, so the concept is not very foreign to modern sensibilities.
The context of the hymns’ creation is somewhat murky. Some of the hymns appear to be introductory pieces culled from larger works, invocations and celebrations of a deity that a poet would sing before launching into the primary narrative of his work. These invocations are similar to prayers and supplications. Across cultures, prayers and supplications accomplish two functions: 1) They honor (praise, venerate) the subject of the invocation; and 2) They ask the subject for something (supplication). The “Invocation tothe Muses,” the introductory element of Hesiod’s Theogony, is an example of such an invocation. It glorifies the Muses by reminding listeners of who the Muses are, where they come from, and extolling their glory (kleos). As one would expect, the invocation also asks the Muses to help the poet remember the song that he is about to sing. In a less self-reflective context, prayers might simply ask the deity for his favor, such as the case of the Christian “Lord’s Prayer,”: “Our father, who art in Heaven, glory be thy name” (emphasis added). The prayer literally glorifies the deity. As the prayer continues, it asks for benevolence or mercy: “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (emphasis added). In other words, give us something in the economic exchange for our piety; the supplicant prostrates himself before the deity and asks for mercy or benevolence in exchange for one’s piety. Prayer voices a contract between the suppliant and deity or person in power. The functional pattern of such prayers in the Greek world is similar. Other hymns appear to stand alone, not referring to, or suggesting that, any other content is to follow. Thus, scholars infer that some of the hymns were originally introductory elements of larger works while others were always intended as standalone dedications to their respective deities. Their functions as prayers or supplications is otherwise similar to those hymns that were culled from larger works.
A more practical difference between the various hymns is that of length: there are longer narrative poems and shorter dedicatory poems. As the terms imply, the narrative poems tell a story with a discernable beginning, middle, and end. The shorter hymns, meanwhile, tend to simply venerate their subject deity and perhaps mention a few traits or accomplishments of said god. The Homeric Hymns provide our earliest sustained iterations of many popular myths from the Greek world.
The hymn tells two intertwining aetiological stories. Aetiology is the study of causes or origins. It comes from the Greek term aitia, “cause.”[4] Therefore, an aetiological myth is a myth that explains the causes or origins of various phenomena in the world. The Hymn to Demeter famously explains the cause for the seasons as well as the origin of the Eleusinian Mystery cult. Indeed, the first story is addressed at “the beginning and end of the Hymn [when] Demeter’s daughter is abducted, with Zeus’ consent, by Hades,”[5] and the reaction of Demeter to this loss prevents grain from growing on the earth. The resolution of this plot leads to the creation of seasons in the Greek world.
The second of the intertwined narratives “concerns another aetiological story, that of the foundation of the worship of Demeter and Persephone (also called Kore) in the city of Eleusis, some 22 kilometers west of Athens.”[6] Mystery cults were popular in the Greek world, and have been connected to the development of Christianity. The Eleusinian Mysteries were popular and fairly early. As the term implies, little is known about the actual rites of the cult because such things were only shared with initiates. What we do know about mystery cults is that they involved a closer bond with a deity or set of deities than regularly occurred in the larger Greco-Roman world. In this sense, the initiates formed a contract or covenant with the deity, often for the promise of a better life or some other reward. Viewed from this removed perspective, it’s easy to see the association between mystery religions and the Abrahamic religions that dominate the modern era.[7]
The poem states at the outset that Zeus arranged the marriage of his daughter, Persephone (via Demeter), with Hades: her marriage to Hades was “the gift of far-seeing, loud-thundering Zeus.” As is the right of the patriarch in Athenian culture,[8] the father negotiated the marriage of his daughter. Thus, when Hades carries off Persephone to the underworld against her will, it is with the knowledge and permission of her father.
When Demeter hears the cries of her daughter, she goes off in search for Persephone. “for nine days [she] roamed the earth with torches burning in her hands, nor ever in her sorrow did she taste ambrosia and sweet nectar, nor bathe her body.” Immediately, Demeter went off in search for her daughter and gave no care for her own sustenance or appearance. This behavior foreshadows her disregard for the greater community when she learns the truth of Persephone’s disappearance.
On the tenth day, Hecate reveals that she heard Persephone cry out but was unable to see who or what abducted her. Thus, the pair of goddesses turn to Helios, the sun god. Metaphors for sight and knowledge are popular in Greek culture. This is understandable, for as Plato explains in his famous “Allegory of the Cave,” the Sun is like the greatest good. We cannot know it directly just as we cannot stare directly at the sun, but we experience the effects of the good and reflections of that good in everything we do. Likewise, the light of the sun allows us to see even though we cannot stare directly at the sun itself. The emphasis, for our purpose, is that the Sun sees all. It sits high in the sky, and it is the phenomenon that facilitates sight. For this reason, sun gods often double as oracles for the human world and witnesses for the divine. Thus, Demeter and Hecate “came to Helios, who watches both gods and men, and stood before his horses.” Helios observed that which no other immortal could see, Persephone was abducted by Hades.
Metope from the temple of Athena at Troy, Hellenistic relief (4th century BCE). Carole Raddato. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Helios is typically depicted as a youthful (beardless) male driving a four-horse chariot across the sky. He often wears a sun crown or halo designating his role as the sun god. He is also described as dragging the sun disc behind his chariot. Insofar as any god represents the sun itself, Helios is the sun. However, he is often conflated with his father, Hyperion (Heavenly Light), as is the case in Homer.
The sun crown identifies him as Helios rather than Phaethon, his son, who famously took the reins of his father’s chariot but was unable to control the horses and had to be struck down by Zeus. Similar stories about of young men lithely taking on serious tasks and failing to complete them abound in Greek mythology. The myth of Icarus and his wax-bound wings is probably the most famous such myth.
Helios attempts to assuage Demeter’s anger over the loss of her daughter, but it also hints at the underlying misogyny of the poem and the culture in which it was composed:
“There is none other responsible of the immortals but Zeus himself, the gatherer of clouds, who gave your daughter to Hades, his own brother, to be called his lovely wife. And Hades has ravished her away in his chariot, loudly wailing, beneath the dusky gloom. But, Goddess, cease from your long lamenting. It is not fitting for you vainly to hold onto anger unassuaged like this. No unseemly son-in-law among the immortals is [Hades], the lord of many, your own brother and of one seed with you. For his share he won, when the threefold division was first made, sovereignty among those with whom he dwells.”
There is much to unpack in this speech. We’ll take it in turn. Zeus is responsible for Persephone’s disappearance. He negotiated a marriage contract with Hades. Note that neither Persephone, the bride, nor Demeter, the mother, had any knowledge or say in the matter. This would seem rather harsh, even by Athenian standards, but its harsh simplicity reinforces its implied message: the patriarch married his daughter off to whom he chose as was his right.
Helios continues this line of reasoning by telling Demeter that it is “not fitting” for her to “vainly hold onto anger” over the marriage of her child. Indeed, in Greek, as in Western European, culture, women married into the families of their husbands, thus leaving the families of their parents. Demeter should know this, and to rage over it would be tantamount to raging that water is wet or the sky blue.
Helios then ends his speech with an attempt to console Demeter for the loss of her child by reflecting on the glory of her marriage partner: “No Unseemly son-in-law” is Hades; “For his share he won…sovereignty among those with whom he dwells.” In other words, Hades is a king who rules an equal share of the world: Zeus the sky, Poseidon the seas, and Hades the underworld.[9] Mothers and daughters should take pride in the prestige of the men to whom they are wed; love or desire to marry at all is immaterial.
In the previous section, we noted that Demeter showed signs of an unwillingness to conform to the social expectations of her station. She is a mother. She should let go of her daughter. Further, Zeus claims the right, as patriarch of Olympus, to marry his child away. These are parallels to human households, of course, and harsh ones at that. The expectations of human society only apply to the gods when it is convenient that they do so for the narrative. Yet on one level, at least – the human level – the matter is clear: Demeter isn’t going to conform to her prescribed (gender) role. In her “dread and bitter” grief for the loss of her daughter (remember: Persephone figuratively died in becoming the bride of Hades), “[Demeter] kept apart from the gathering of the gods and from tall Olympos.”
(c. 27 BCE to 14 CE). National Museum, Athens. The ten fragments have been set into a cast of the original relief.
"Demeter, the goddess of agricultural abundance, stands at the left, clad in a peplos and himation (cloak) and holding a scepter. At the right is Persephone, her daughter and the wife of Hades, the god of the underworld. She is dressed in a chiton and himation. Each goddess extends her right hand toward a nude youth, but it is no longer possible to determine what they held. The boy is thought to be Triptolemos, who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain." (MET)
At this point, the second narrative begins, Demeter’s interaction with the ruling family of Eleusis. The goddess disguised herself and wandered the “cities and rich fields of men for many days.” In a body that doubtless reflected her mood, she played the part of an old, destitute crone resting by a fountain at Eleusis. In this respect, she looked “like the nurses in the children of verdict-pronouncing kings, like the housekeepers in their echoing halls.”
Fortuitously, the daughters of king Celeos happened upon her and took pity on the old woman. The “fairest of the daughters,” Callidice,[10] spoke thus:
“Mother…. I will tell you clearly and truly what men here have most honor, who lead the people and by their counsels and just verdicts safeguard the bulwarks of the city…. All their wives keep their houses, and not one of them would at first sight scorn your appearance and bar you from their halls, but gladly will they receive you, for your aspect is divine. So, if you will, abide here, so that we may go to the house of my father and tell out all this to my mother, the deep-girdled Metaneira, if perhaps she will bid you come to our house and not seek the homes of others. A dear son born in her later years is nurtured in the well-built hall, a welcome child of many prayers. If you would nurse him till he comes to the measure of youth, then whatever woman saw you would envy you. Such gifts would my mother give you in return for raising him.”[11]
Callidice’s speech reinforces many Greek practices and world views. The most important of which is the concept of xenia. Xenia is the sacred obligation of hospitality. Instances of xenia, both performed properly and violated, permeate Greek myth. The basic premise is this: strangers or travelers in a foreign land are sacred to Zeus, the god and protector of strangers (Zeus Xenios). It was expected that strangers would be given food, shelter, and a gift of friendship when they supplicated themselves before someone’s home. Once taken in, the stranger was treated as a member of the family. He was under certain obligations as well. He was, of course, expected to behave honorably and carry himself so while under the roof of another, and in being granted xenia (“guest-friendship”) by his host, he implicitly acknowledged that he would welcome anyone from his host’s family into his own home, should they ever travel to his homeland. A violation of xenia ostensibly sparked the Trojan War, the most famous backdrop in the corpus of Greek mythology. In showing pity for, and offering xenia to, Demeter, Callidice proves herself a good and proper Greek. She is, in other words, civilized.
We learn something more about gender and station roles in Callidice’s speech. It is her mother, Metaneira, who must decide whether to welcome the old woman into her home and to accept her as nursemaid to her infant son, or to refuse Demeter these courtesies. In Athenian society, wives were responsible for the interior aspects of the home; they raised the young and oversaw household chores – including the servants who performed them. These social responsibilities are reflected in the myth as well: Metaneira governs the household servants. It’s also of note that her daughters, women of the house, were responsible for domestic chores such as replenishing fresh water from the fountain at which Callidice and her sisters first encountered Demeter. Women in Greek myth consistently appear in these “domestic” roles, thus reinforcing the gender expectations of Greek society.
Metaneira is informed of the old woman (Demeter) whom her daughters spoke with by the fountain, and she immediately agrees to grant the disguised goddess xenia as well as hire her to work as nanny to her infant son. Metaneira thus welcomes the stranger into her household (oikos),[12] honoring her with a “a fine wage” – she is no mean slave. In the following speech, Metaneira, Demeter, and her daughters offer libations and drink to formalize their pact of xenia:
“Hail, lady, for I think that you are not of mean parentage, but nobly born, for modesty and grace shine in your eyes as in the eyes of verdict-pronouncing kings. But the gifts of the gods, even in sorrow, we humans endure out of necessity, for the yoke is laid upon our necks; yet now that you have come here, such things as I have shall be yours. Rear for me this child that the gods have given in my later years and beyond my hope; and he is to me a child of many prayers. If you rear him, and he comes to the measure of youth, truly each woman that sees you will envy you, such shall be my gifts in return for raising him.”
Metaneira’s pledge speaks to another common theme that is woven throughout Greek myths; it deals with the relationship between gods and humans: humans endure the “gifts” of the gods out of necessity. That is to say, the lot in life of humans is to suffer and endure whatever the gods “gift” us. This theme is most famously espoused in by Achilles in Book 24 of the Iliad:
“There is nothing to be gained from cold lament.
“For so have the gods spun the thread of wretched
mortals – to live in pain, while they are without care.
Two jars of gifts that he gives are set into the floor of Zeus,
one of evils, the other of good things. To whomever
Zeus who delights in the thunder gives a mixed portion,
that man receives now evil, now good. But to the man
to whom he gives only pain, he has made him to be roughly
treated, and ravening hunger drives him over the shining
earth. He walks dishonored by gods and by men.” [13]
The will of the gods is beyond mortal comprehension and power. All humans suffer, and we have no recourse except to endure that suffering. Note that while one may receive “gifts” from both jars, Achilles says nothing of the man who receives only from the jar of good things. That is because suffering is part and parcel with the human condition. In contrast to the gods, “wretched mortals” grow old and die while the gods live on ageless and immortal “without a care.” For Metaneira to pronounce this relationship and offer up libations to the gods is to acknowledge and accept her place in the cosmic order. In both actions – practicing xenia and acknowledging her lot in the world as human – Metaneira models behavior of a proper, civilized, god-fearing Greek. Scenes like these (Achilles and Metaneira, respectively) proliferate throughout Greek myths because they affirm or perpetuate the cultural expectations of Greek society. In fact, this very contrast between the mortality of humans and the immortality of the gods becomes the focus of Demeter’s care for the child as the narrative continues.
Demeter, recently bereft of her own daughter, was determined to raise her new charge to heights beyond the horizon of mortals: “she nursed the fine son…Metaneira bore, and he grew like a god, upon no mortal food nor mother’s milk.” Rather, at night, “Demeter anointed him with ambrosia as though he had been a son of a god, breathing sweetness over him and keeping him in her lap.” At night, she would “hide him in the force of fire like a brand, unbeknownst to his parents. No, to them it was a great marvel how he flourished and grew like the gods.” Demeter meant to turn the child, Demophon, into a god: “And truly she would have made him exempt from old age and death forever, had not fair-girdled Metaneira in her witlessness spied on her in the night from her fragrant chamber.” Metaneira stumbled upon Demeter hardening the boy in the fire of her hearth and, seeing her child in apparent danger, Metaneira screamed out, startling the goddess.
The list of humans who become gods in Greek myth is a short one. Only Herakles and his half-brothers, Castor and Polyduces, can claim such an honor outright. However, Ganymede is also raised up to become the cupbearer of Zeus; and two other heroes, Theseus and Orpheus, manage to descend to the underworld and then successfully return to the living world, but they continue to age and eventually die like other mortals. Far more common are the instances in myths where the mortal is denied agelessness and immortality. Demophon is certainly dear to the gods - Demeter dotes on him like a son - but so are many a hero of Greek myth; they die too. There is another quote from the Iliad that touches on this very point. Achilles, speaking to Lycaon, a bastard son of Priam, the king of Troy, has given up the fight and thrown himself at Achilles' mercy in Book 21. The following was Achilles' reply:
"Poor fool, no longer speak to me of ransom, nor argue for it.
In the time before Patroklos came to the day of his destiny [fate or death]
then it was the way of my heart's choice to be sparing
of the Trojans, and many I took alive and disposed of them.
Now there is not one who can escape death, if the gods send
him against my hands in front of Ilion, not one
of all the Trojans and beyond other the children of Priam.
So, friend, you die also. Why all this clamor about it?
Patroklos also is dead, who was better by far than you are.
Do you not see what a man I am, how huge, how splendid
and born of a great father, and the mother who bore me immortal?
Yet even I have also my death and my strong destiny,
and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noontime
when some man in the fight will take the life from me also
either with a spearcast or an arrow flown from the bow-string." [20]
Humans are born to die, regardless of their magnificence or parentage. Mortal children of the gods grow old and die throughout the tales of Greek myth. As Achilles has artitulated in the two quotes we analyzed in this essay, mortals grow old and die by definition and as a matter of course. The terms destiny and fate are synonyms for death in these stories - a mortals fate is to die.
Returning to our hymn, Demeter punished Metaneira’s child by denying him the agelessness and immortality that she had planned for him. Similar patterns occur in Hesiod’s Works and Days in which Zeus destroys the Silver Age of mankind because they failed to respect the gods. The loss of immortality and a carefree existence occurs in the myths of other cultures as well: the exile from Paradise is a key moment in Judeo-Christian myth, and the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh famously lost the key to immortality after an epic quest to obtain it. Each of these stories works to affirm the fundamental differences between god(s) and human(s): mortality, ignorance, and suffering often brought on by that ignorance, are defining features of the human condition.
However, Demeter does not entirely forsake Demophon or the Eleusinian people who were god-fearing and offerred the goddess xenia while, disguised as an old vagabond, she mourned the loss of Persephone. The compensation she gives to the people of Eleusis is the seed of the Eleusinian mysteries:
Then in wrath did fair-garlanded Demeter snatch out of the fire with her immortal hands and set upon the ground that woman’s dear son, whom beyond all she had borne in the halls. Dread was the wrath of Demeter, and soon she spoke to fair-girdled Metaneira: “O Helpless and uncounseled race of men, who know not beforehand the fate of coming good or coming evil. For, behold, you have wrought upon yourself a bane incurable by your own witlessness. For by the oath of the gods, the relentless water of Styx, I would have made your dear child deathless and exempt from age forever and would have given him glory imperishable. But now in no way may he escape the Moirai[14] and death, yet glory imperishable will ever be his, since he has lain on my knees and slept within my arms. But as the years go round, the sons of Eleusinians will ever wage war and dreadful strife, one upon the other. I am the honored Demeter, the greatest good and gain to the immortals and mortal men. but, come now, let all the people build me a great temple and an altar beside, below the town and the steep wall, above Callichoros on the jutting rock. But I myself will prescribe the rites, so that in time to come you may duly perform them and appease my power.”
We should analyze the way in which Demeter’s plan to deify Demophon is foiled. The goddess is startled by Metaneira’s screams, and in a somewhat capricious reaction, ceases her activities. It is as if the child could only transcend his humanity so long as the transformation occurred without human knowledge of it. Yet that very ignorance that defines humans in relation to gods is what undoes Demophon’s bid for agelessness and immortality. Metaneira screams at Demeter to take her child out of the fire, thinking that fire is dangerous and will harm him. Ordering a deity never goes over well in myths; it inverts the natural order or power structure of the cosmos. Yet the process, overseen by the goddess, is doing just the opposite of what Metaneira thinks she sees. It is fortifying and transforming the child’s body into something of sturdier, more divine stuff. Metaneira’s all-too-human ignorance disrupts this process beyond repair. Demeter’s refusal to continue the process of transforming Demophon from mortal to immortal seems capricious, erratic, or mercurial. In fact, it is a typical reaction of a god who is caught unaware by a human. The most famous such instance involves Actaeon and Artemis in the version told by Ovid: Artemis is the Olympian goddess of the hunt and protector of wild animals. She’s also associated with protection of the young. She is a maiden deity, unwed and never depicted nude in Greek art. One morning, the young man, Actaeon, took his dogs out on a hunt and inadvertently stumbled upon Artemis bathing in a spring. The goddess was embarrassed when she turned to see him staring at her naked form, and that embarrassment quickly turned to anger. She transformed Actaeon into one of the deer that he had gone into the forest to hunt, and the young man was devoured by his own hunting dogs. Like Artemis bathing in the spring, Demeter was caught unaware by a mortal, and the immediate shock of this encounter drove the goddess to rage. Ultimately, the story of Demophon has most in common with that of Tithonos, the beautiful Trojan youth with whom Eos, the goddess Dawn, was infatuated. She set out to make her lover immortal and succeeded. However, the failed to make him ageless, as well as immortal, and his immortality became a curse as he aged forever, growing more wizend and infirmed with every passing year until he yearned for the sweet release of death. The lesson? Mortals are destined to die. Fate is not an enemy to be conquered but, rather, endured in the Greek conception of the the world.
Having abandoned her role as nursemaid to the child Demophon and established the Eleusinian mysteries, Demeter departs from Eleusis, and the narrative of her struggle to reunite with Persephone is resumed. The grain goddess made it so that the earth was barren:
Then the most dread and terrible of years did the goddess bring for mortals upon the fruitful earth, nor did the earth send up the seed, for Demeter of the fine garland concealed it. Many crooked ploughs did the oxen drag through the furrows in vain, and much white barley fell fruitless upon the land. Now the whole race of mortal men would have perished utterly from the stress of famine, and the gods who hold mansions in Olympos would have lost the share and renown of gift and sacrifice, if Zeus had not taken note and conceived a counsel within his heart.
Demeter has no quarrel with humans. In fact, the previous
episode of the hymn showed her care for, and appreciation of, the Eleusinian
leading families. Yet humans in this and other myths are used as pawns by the
gods. The myths of Prometheus and Pandora, told by Hesiod in two different
versions,[15] depict humans as victims in a contest of wills between Zeus and Prometheus.
According to Hesiod, humans ultimately suffer because Prometheus cared for them,
and Zeus wished to punish Prometheus for his various challenges to Zeus’ rule.
Likewise, Demeter denies harvests to humans, thus killing them by starvation in
droves just to wound Zeus, who is then denied the honors of sacrifice that
humans would make to him and the other gods. Demeter refused Zeus’ bidding to
return to Olympus and fulfill her role as grain goddess. He first sent Iris,
the herald of the gods, to bid Demeter return. When that failed, he sent
others to implore her to return:
Thereafter the Father sent forth all the blessed gods, all of the immortals, and coming one by one they bade Demeter return and offered her many splendid gifts and all honors that she might choose among the immortal gods. But none was able to persuade her by turning her mind and her angry heart, so stubbornly she refused their appeals. For she thought no more forever to enter fragrant Olympos, and no more to allow the earth to bear her fruit, until her eyes should behold her fair-faced daughter.
Demeter’s obstinate refusal to return to Olympos and bring forth the fruits of harvest from the fertile earth is couched in the rhetoric of family and community. Zeus is “the Father” whose household is Olympos. The gods who dwell there are the members of his family. Persephone was “gifted” to Hades by Zeus, her father, in an arranged marriage; this is a common occurrence in the Greek world even if the daughter’s and mother’s complete ignorance of the marriage arrangements are not. Young women leave the household of their parents as a matter of course in Athens, among other Greek poleis.[16] The hymn goes out of its way to emphasize that Demeter has acted inappropriately. She violates the “natural” order of Greek patriarchal society by refusing to accept the Patriarch’s decision to marry off his daughter.[17] This rebellion is given greater scope by having “all the blessed gods” come to Demeter in turn and ask her to return to Olympus and her duties. In other words, the community of the gods affirms that her actions are improper. She has ground the world to a figurative halt. Nothing grows. It’s eternal winter.[18] That the hymn asks us to view Demeter’s grief as an overreaction is apparent. What is less easy to interpret is the resolution to the dilemma.
Demeter’s wrath is continually characterized as extreme or disruptive to the societies of humans and gods, but she also gets her way. In the same breath that her actions are characterized as harmful to the community, Hermes delivers Zeus’ order to Hades that Persephone be returned to Olympus in order to assuage Demeter’s wrath:
“Hades…, Father Zeus bade me bring the glorious Persephone forth from Erebos among the gods, so that her mother may behold her and relent from her anger and terrible wrath against the immortals. For now she contrives a mighty deed, to destroy the feeble tribes of earth-born men by hiding the seed under the earth. Thereby the honors of the gods are diminished, and fierce is her wrath, and she does not mingle with the gods, but sits apart within the fragrant temple in the steep citadel of Eleusis.”
Hades consents to return Persephone to Olympus; although it
is clear that she remains his bride, and he does not intend for her to remain
there indefinitely: “Go, Persephone, to your dark-mantled mother…. Truly I
shall be no unseemly lord or yours among the immortals…. And while you are here,
you shall be mistress over all that lives and moves, but among the immortals
you shall have the greatest renown.” In other words, Hades does not relinquish
his wife from their marriage but, rather, allows her to visit with her mother
on Olympus. Most of his speech is an attempt to convince Persephone that her
marriage to Hades is beneficial to her, that she will receive much honor and
renown through her connection to Hades, brother of Zeus and ruler of the
underworld. Hades’ argument subtley reinforces that of Helios to Demeter earlier in the hymn.
Again, it is unclear if Persephone realizes that Hades has no
intention of relinquishing his claim to her or that she knows her visit to
Olympus is just that, a visit. Certainly, Hades’ language suggests that it is a
temporary move, but whichever is the case, Hades concocts a plan to guarantee
that Persephone remain his bride: “So spoke he, and wise Persephone was glad.
Joyously and swiftly she arose, but the god himself, stealthily looking around
him, gave her a sweet pomegranate seed to eat, and this he did so that she
might not abide forever beside revered Demeter of the dark mantle.”
Immediately upon arriving on Olympus, Demeter inquires if Persephone ate any food in the underworld, explaining that “if you have not, then with me and your father, [Zeus], shall you ever dwell honored among all the immortals. But if you have tasted food, you must return again and beneath the hollows of the earth dwell in the house of Hades a third portion of the year. Yet two parts of the year you shall abide with me [on Olympus].” No rationalization is offered as to why eating food in the underworld would bind Persephone to Hades. However, the figurative meaning is clear enough. Marriage ceremonies in Athens culminated with a procession in which the bride and groom were carried to the bedchamber and the marriage was consummated in the home of the groom, the wife’s new home. She would transition from maiden (girl or korē) to women in the act. Only then was the ritual complete. Consuming food in the house of Hades, in the form of a “seed” no less,[19] serves as the metaphorical consummation of Persephone’s marriage to Hades. She is bound to him at this point.
Demeter relents from her anger, apparently assuaged enough to spend at least two thirds of the year with her daughter on Olympus. During this period, the goddess is pleased by Persephone’s presence, and the earth is bountiful (Spring/Summer). For the third of the year that Persephone spends in the house of Hades, Demeter is forlorn, and “the earth hides its seed,” nothing grows (Winter).
Attic red-figure bell krater attributed to the Persephone Painter (c. 440 BCE).
Metropolitan Museum of Art 28.57.23
Persephone ascends to earth through a rocky outcrop. She is guided by Hermes as the guide of souls to the underworld and the herald of Zeus, and Hekate, who aided Demeter on her torch-lit search for Persephone in the Homeric hymn. At the far right stands Demeter, waiting to receive her daughter and the renewal of life that her return engendered. The artist made an unusual choice in painting Hermes en face (facing forward).
Greek vase painters normally portrayed figures en face to highlight unusual features such as the monstrous gorgons (MET 01.8.6) or the figure of Pandora (British Museum 1865, 1213.1) while she was still being molded and turned into a living creature. This could be an example of the artist portaying depth, which became popular in late 5th and 4th century red-figure after the influence of 5th century muralists. However, that effect is more normally achieved by varying the ground line, which is consistent in this scene. In any case, the effect does add some depth to Hermes' position in the scene, but his en face posture also appears unnatural in that he is staring out of the vase rather than at the action involved in the scene.
In her final action in the hymn, Demeter returns to Eleusis to bestow her gifts upon the Eleusinian lords who welcomed her into their home while in the throes of her mourning when she was disguised as an old vagabond. Now appearing as an Olympian deity in all her glory,
She hastened and showed the care of her rites to the verdict-pronouncing kings, Triptolemos and Diocles, the charioteer, and mighty Eumolpos and Celeos, the leader of the people. She taught Triptolemos, Polyxeinos, and Diocles her fine mysteries, holy mysteries that none may violate or search into or noise abroad, for the great curse from the gods restrains the voice. Happy is he among mortal men who has beheld these things! And he who is uninitiated and has no lot in them never has an equal lot in death beneath the murky gloom.
Demeter’s gifts to the Eleusinians is twofold. As the goddess of grain, she educates humans in the manipulation of grain. Yet, there is a greater boon involved in this episode. She teaches them her mysteries, rites that will ensure a happier lot in death (i.e., after one dies, something greater awaits those who are initiated in Demeter’s mystery cult!). In this mystery cult, we observe a similar contract or covenant between deity and worshipper in the Greek world to that found in the Old Testament/Torrah of nascent Judaism in which Yahweh was one god singled out of many and with whom Abraham formed a covenant.
Attic red-figure kylix (interior) from Vulci by Aberdeen Painter (c. 470-460 BCE). Louvre G452. Photo credit: Jastrow (2007).
Triptolemus in his flying chair, with Kore (Persephone).
The Hymn to Demeter glosses over an episode in which Demeter teaches Triptolemus and his fellow Eleusinian lords the secrets of her mystery cult and how to manipulate grain. In other versions, such as that depicted here, Triptolemus becomes an emissary of Demeter, flying far and wide to bring Demeter’s gift of grain, as well as her cult worship, to all corners of the Greek world.
It is not uncommon in Archaic myth to suggest that there are different “rewards” in the underworld for deceased mortals. In Homer, mortal heroes sometimes go to a special place, the Isle of the Blessed. Although that is not always the case, as the shades of Achilles, Ajax, et al. persist in the typical gloom of the underworld when Odysseus travels to the border between realms in the Odyssey. And again, in Virgil’s Aeneid (c. 19 BCE), Aeneas travels across a thoroughly fleshed-out underworld in which honored souls (psuchēs) of deceased heroes reside in the fields of Elysium (a bright, fertile, cheerful place).
Nevertheless, the mystery cult that centered around Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis represents a different attitude toward death and the potential of life after death. Whereas before, only heroes (“warriors” in the Homeric lexicon) were capable of accessing something other than a mute, dumb existence in the house of Hades, now through a special contract with Demeter and Persephone, the layperson in the Greek world is able to reap the benefits of such an afterlife. This special bond, contract, or “covenant” between initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the goddesses Demeter and Persephone is strikingly similar to the Hebrew relationship between Abraham and the Abrahamic God. This parallel is the primary reason scholars point to Greco-Roman mystery cults as precursors to – and possible inspirations for – the development of Christianity.
[1] Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation. Stephen M. Trzaskoma, r. Scott Smith, and Stephen Brunet (eds., trans.). Hackett (2004).
[2] Diane Rayor. The Homeric Hymns: A Translation, with Introduction and Notes: A Joan Palevsky Book in Classical Literature . The University of California Press (2004). Link is to updated edition (2014).
[3] Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation. Stephen M. Trzaskoma, r. Scott Smith, and Stephen Brunet (eds., trans.). Hackett (2004).
[5] Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation. Stephen M. Trzaskoma, r. Scott Smith, and Stephen Brunet (eds., trans.). Hackett (2004).
[6] ibid.
[7] Judaism, Christianity, and Islam similarly establish a contract with their chosen deity for the promise of a reward in the afterlife.
[8] The vast majority of Greek texts that exist today arrive to us through an Athenian filter. The 5th century Athenian empire was an economic powerhouse, attracting artisans and scholars from throughout the Greek world. The result is that we know more about Athens than any other Greek city-state, but it can also color our interpretation of Greek culture as a whole when, in reality, our evidence represents primarily that of Athens alone. Nevertheless, Greek culture was deeply patriarchal, and certain myths, such as the Long Hymn to Demeter, are laced with a kind of misogyny that perpetuates distinctly patriarchal values.
[9] Homer, Iliad 15.187-95. In The Essential Homer. Stanley Lombard (trans., ed). Hackett (2000).
[10] Callidice, or Kalli- (“beautiful”) and -dikē (custom, judgement). In other words, the woman’s outer beauty reflects in her inner character. She does things properly, dutifully, or rightly.
[11] Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation. Stephen M. Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, and Stephen Brunet (eds., trans.). Hackett (2004).
[12] Oἶκος , ὁ. “house,” “home,” or “belonging to a family.” Logeion.
[13] Homer. The Iliad. Barry B. Powell (trans.). Oxford UP (2014).
[14] Fates (i.e., his death).
[15] Theogony(570-615) and Works and Days (47-105).
[16] Poleis. Plural of polis, “city-state.”
[17]The 20th century French philosopher, Roland Barthes, wrote famously, “myth naturalizes history.” In other words, myth is used to justify societal power structures by presenting them as the natural order of things or presenting the disjointed facts (from the Latin factus, “a thing done”) of history as a episodes in a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. Indeed, the very concept of fate presupposes an ordered series of events with a telos or logical goal in mind like the ideal Aristotelian tragedy.
[18] The state of eternal winter is popular in northern European folklore as a sign that there is a sickness or imbalance in the world. These tropes are common in modern Hollywood adaptations of the Snow White myth. See, for example, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012); The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016); and Mirror Mirror (2012). In each film, the land is tainted, barren, or trapped in an eternal winter to reflect the uncivilized/evil behavior of the Queen.
[19] The term semen, in English, is derived from the Latin semen, meaning “seed.” Similarly, the English sperm is derived from the Latin sperma, meaning “seed,” “semen,” “sperm.”
[20] Homer. Iliad of Homer . Richard Lattimore (trans.). Chicago UP (2011).
