Chapter 27
Demeter and Persephone: The
Homeric Hymn to Demeter
The Hymn to Demeter
• Was a “working version” of a myth.
• Used at ceremonies in honor of the goddess held at her
shrine in Eleusis, a town near Athens in Greece.
• Composed before the end of the seventh century B.C.E.
(699–600 B.C.E.).
• Explains the significance of Eleusis: It was the place
Demeter came to when she went to earth to look for her
daughter Persephone. The Eleusinians built a temple for
Demeter, and thus her visit led to the origin of her
worship there.
• The main celebration took place in early autumn, when
the drought of summer was ending and the fields were
becoming green.
Theology
• Demeter is the Greek goddess of grain and agriculture.
She is worshipped with her daughter Persephone or
Κόρη (Kore, “girl”), who represents the life force of the
grain and disappears from the earth when the seed is
put into the ground to die (as seed) and be born again
(as grain).
• Frazer suggested that since Demeter revitalizes the
seed, she became associated with giving new life to the
dead. This would explain her association in this story
with Aidoneus (Hades), the god of the dead, which
makes her the death god’s mother-in-law.
• Demeter’s worship at Eleusis promises an afterlife to
initiates
The Style of the Poem
• The Hymn to Demeter was composed in the style of Homer.
• Homer was an oral poet who would perform his works from memory
or create them on the spot for his audience.
• He used modular units called “formulas” for building his poems.
• Each time a poem was performed, it would be slightly different,
because the poet would build it according to his moods and the
response of his audience.
• Examples of the formulas used in the poem:
– “Lovely haired” describes Demeter.
– “Slender-ankled” describes Persephone.
– “Far-seeing and loud-thundering” describes Zeus.
– The story also repeats longer sections, like “the many-named son of
Kronos carried her away against her will.”
Greek Gender Gap and the Hymn
to Demeter
• Helene Foley states that “[t]he Hymn repeats the pattern of sexual
tensions among male and female deities found in Hesiod and
prefigures the similar tensions that pervade Aeschylus’ Oresteia”
(116).
• The Hymn portrays the struggle of the mother, Demeter, to hold on
to her child against the wishes of the father. Ultimately, Demeter has
to give in to Zeus’ “patriarchal agenda” (Foley 169), but both the
Hymn and the ritual at Eleusis give elaborate testimony to the power
of her resistance and, as a result, to her limited autonomy.
• Clay notes that “As a whole the Hymn to Demeter may be
understood as an attempt to integrate, and hence to absorb, the cult
of Demeter and the message of Eleusis into the Olympian cosmos”
(265) represented by the poetry of Homer and Hesiod.
Greek Marriage Customs
• Greek women and men entered marriage
at very different ages.
• Men tended to marry when they had
already established themselves, at 30 or
so.
• Women, on the other hand, married near
menarche, the start of their menstrual
period, at the age of 14 to 16.
The Story of Persephone as a
Marriage
• Persephone is betrothed by her father Zeus to his
brother Aidoneus/Hades.
• She is not consulted; her intended husband is old
enough to be her father.
• Vase paintings and statues from the time period of the
Hymn often portray Aidoneus/Hades and Persephone as
a loving couple, the king and queen of Hades. Demeter
is also portrayed as blessing their marriage.
• The Hymn gives us much the same perspective. Near
the beginning of the story, Helios tells Demeter, who is
distraught at the loss of her daughter, “Not an unseemly
bridegroom among immortals is Aidoneus/Hades, Lord
of Many.”
The Story of Persephone as a
Marriage
• Near the end, Aidoneus/Hades tells Persephone, “I shall
not be an unfitting husband among the immortals, as I
am father Zeus’ own brother. When you are here you
shall be mistress of everything which lives and moves;
your honors among the immortals shall be the greatest,
and those who wrong you shall always be punished, if
they do not propitiate your spirit with sacrifices,
performing sacred rites and making due offerings” (p.
399).
• Rhea, Demeter’s mother, tells her, “Come and do not
nurse unrelenting anger against Kronion (Zeus), lord of
dark clouds; Soon make the life-giving seed grow for
men” (p. 401).
Modern Feminist Views
of Demeter and Persephone
• The story attaches value to women and their emotions.
• The Hymn is an account of rape, which represents the intrusion of
men into the peaceful lives and loves of women, the triumph of
patriarchy, and the limitation of religion based on the feminine
principle.
• Gimbutas would regard the myth as reflecting remnants of Great
Goddess worship in Pre-Indo European society.
• Other feminist interpretations do not necessarily regard the myth
describing a historical period. Instead, the myth may be used to
explore gender dynamics under patriarchy and the ways in which
women may resist having their relationships defined by attaching
more importance to interactions between women.
What Kinds of Insights Does the Myth of Demeter
and Persephone Provide?
• The myth explains the origin of worship at
Eleusis and the basis for building a temple
there.
• We see the importance of Eleusis as an
agricultural state, which is why it could resist
being completely swallowed up in the Athenian
empire.
• Persephone goes down into the underworld and
comes back, thus conquering death. Her
triumph over death suggests that human beings
can also, to some extent, overcome death.
• The myth explains the origin and the
significance of the seasons. The science of the
time understood, as we do today, that certain
meteorological conditions are necessary for the
seed to grow.
Aetiological
Historical
Metaphysical
Cosmological
What Kinds of Insights?
• Although the marriage to Aidoneus
causes grief to Persephone and
Demeter, the story shows that the
girl and her family adjust to it.
• The myth shows us the grief of
Persephone and of Demeter, but it
also shows us that the girl
eventually comes to accept her
husband, at least in a limited way.
• We see both the subservience of
women to men in Athenian society
and the basis of what can be their
terrifying strength in resisting and
defying the decisions of men.
Sociological
Psychological
Anthropological