Chapter Nine, Lecture One
Demeter
Myths of Fertility
• Greeks saw female fertility as a continuing
force of creation
• No one female deity
– Aspects of fertility divided among different
goddesses
• Demeter the closest to a single great
goddess
Demeter
• De (?) meter (mother)
• Daughter is Persephonê
– aka korê
• The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is the
foundation of the mystery cult of Demeter at
Eleusis
Hymn to Demeter
• Persephonê is abducted by Hades
• Helius tells Demeter who took her
• Demeter travels to the Well of the Maiden at
Eleusis, where she is found by the
daughters of the King and Queen
• She is brought to the palace and made the
nanny of the infant prince, Demophoön
Hymn to Demeter
• Demeter is caught trying to make
Demophoön immortal
• She reveals herself and instructs the people
of Eleusis to establish her cult in their city
• Demeter now withdraws her power from the
land
• Hermes is sent to Hades to retrieve
Persephonê
Hymn to Demeter
• Hades offers to let her go, but invites her to
eat one pomegranate seed
• She is reunited with Demeter but must
spend 1/3 of her time in Hades because of
this one seed
• Demeter understands and brings life back
to the earth
• She explains her rituals
Hymn to Demeter
• “Blessed is he who has viewed the
mystery’s ritual . . .”
The Hymn
• Cannot be an agricultural metaphor
– Does not correspond with the weather
patterns in Greece
• Is it an allegory for the coming of age of
young girls?
– The grieving mother who “loses” her
daughter?
– The Mater Dolorosa?
The Hymn
• More generally the grieving at the loss of
any child
– The inevitability of death
Next
The Eleusinian Mysteries
Ancient Parallels