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Lit Hum Class Plan, Tuesday Sept 22nd
Hymn To Demeter
Intro:
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Paper draft due Oct 1: office hour sign ups?
Next Time: Epic of Gilgamesh
clay figurine
handouts: grammar and “on writing”
Summary of Last Class
 function of Achilleus? questions social values – costs of heroic achievement, definition of honor, true
measure of value
 A’s tragedy: can’t transcend the world that established the terms in which he is transcendent
 Self-awareness comes from alienation or mistakes. It is a painfully gained wisdom. Tragedy or loss
leads to understanding and gain.
 anger: personally and socially corrosive.
 What in the heroic world is the true measure of value? humanity, community, love, social institutions
Quick Background
Hymn to Demeter (650 – 550 B.C. E.)
 A Pan-hellenic document containing the foundation myth of the cult of Demeter
 Hymns as religious poetry celebrating a god, performed in festivals. The festival presented in the middle of the
hymn. Features a story biography of the god, sometimes linked to their mythical role. Explains how and why
and where the god is celebrated.
 Hymn to Demeter contains a biography of the goddess but it mostly explains why rituals were situated close to
Athens. Both a pan-hellenic story and a very local story connected to the center of the cult.
 Cult had a run of 2000 years. Cthonic – about fertility, reproduction and life.
 The ritual was referred to as the Elusian Mysteries: public and private component.
 Homer didn’t write these – just contemporaneous with recitation of Iliad, some similarities in style and dialect,
similarities in performance. Also complimentary: Iliad = humans and gods; Demeter gods and humans.
 Old story – 200-300 years earlier than Trojan war; 300 years of recitation before it was written down.
 Mysteries were secret because they were under control of prominent families – this kept them in power.
o Q: how are religions and religious practices controlled by certain groups and how does this give them
power in society today?
 Oral. A bard would sing this (he asks for money at end), but not a wandering bard. This would be a local bard
doing honor to the families in charge. It is a ritual hymn in a festival.
 Why in Lit Hum? Why this one? text focuses on women and their lives: mom & daughter relationship, the
problem of marriage.
DEMETER: "Deus Mater", or Divine Mother or God Mother
 Dêmêtêr (or Demetra) ("mother-goddess" or perhaps "distribution-mother") is the Greek goddess of
agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and
preserver of marriage and the sacred law.
 She is invoked as the "bringer of seasons" in the Homeric hymn, a subtle sign that she was worshiped long
before the Olympians arrived.
 She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that also predated the
Olympian pantheon. Demeter is easily confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. The goddess's epithets
reveal the span of her functions in Greek life. A connection with the goddess-cults of Minoan Crete is quite
possible. Demeter herself was central to the older religion of Greece. Relics unique to her cult, such as votive
clay pigs, were being fashioned in the Neolithic.
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When Demeter was given a genealogy, she was the daughter of Cronos and Rhea, and therefore the elder sister
of Zeus.
to be in charge of fertility means being in charge of sterility.
Discussion
The Hymn to Demeter: PLOT
 Persephone is picking flowers with other maidens
 Hades, Zeus’ brother, kidnaps Persephone to be his wife.
 Demeter, her mother, hears her cries and searches for her, asking
 Demeter wanders, adopts a boy child, and tries to turn it immortal
 She is seen and in anger abandons the process.
 Demeter demands a temple and brings drought and famine
 Zeus gets worried about this and begs the gods to supplicate Demeter. It doesn’t work.
 Zeus sends Hermes to supplicate Hades, citing human extinction.
 Hades agrees to let Persephone return to the surface and see her mother.
 Hades gives Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat before she goes.
 Demeter asks if she has eaten anything and says if she has, she’ll have to go down there 1/3 of the year.
 Persephone tells her of the seed.
 Zeus codifies the arrangement and sends Rhea to communicate it.
 Demeter makes things grow again.
 The rituals begin
 A bard asks for money.
BEGINNING
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Q: poet “I begin to sing” – more like Gilgamesh and less like Homer. Different kind of bard – local bard with a
permanent job.
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Q: How does it open? Utopian scene interrupted by strife. Meadow = typical rape story setting, like Europa. As
soon as Greeks heard there was a meadow involved, they know kidnapping would be going on.
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Q: Why are the maidens and Persephone in particular so vulnerable? A: They are ripe. They have to be. There is a
time for fertility and if you miss this, everything goes fallow.
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Q: Why the narcissus plant? A: time of self-infatuation is over. Narcissus represents fertility and death.
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Q: what is the perspective of the text?
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beautiful description at beginning puts audience in show of daughter who is a flower. Emphasis on
deception. Persephonie is dazzled – childish.
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line 3: “gave to Aidoneus to abduct” – abduction/rape vs. marriage. Abduction = unwilling. In Greece
abduction meant that the bride was taken without agreement of parents. Kidnapping was that the bride
was taken without her consent. Helen was an abduction not a kidnapping. Why call this abduction and
not kidnapping?
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emphasis on her unwillingness = opposite to feeling your supposed to have at marriage.
Q: Who is at fault here? Lns 30, lns 77 and 78. A: Zeus. Why is he allowing this? He is her father.
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Iliad book 15: the tripartite division between Zeus, Poseidon, Hades.
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Who gets best deal? What does this mean? A: Zeus has to pay them off to preserve Olympic status quo
that benefits him.
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What happens when you manipulate status quo? ie: marry Thetis to a mortal. The Iliad.
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What doesn’t Zeus get? Other siblings – the women – got the shaft. Doesn’t see how the Hades pay off
will anger Demeter.
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Fundamental explosiveness and instability of the status quo. Patriarchal culture that preserves the
message that if guys don’t get it, they are going down the drain.
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Greek myth system always emphasizing how unstable it is. Gang of 12 are supposed to last forever, so
why do they include the myths of how they came into power? (father-son overthrow)
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Why is Demeter upset? What right or power does Zeus infringe upon? Female goddesses have power
over marriage. The mother of a child should have power over her marriage. This myth is about the
difference between male and female mythological systems.
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kidnapping of daughter = death.
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Q: What is Hades’ defense? Pg. 4, lns 83-87 fitting husband = power in new system.
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Q: what do the other gods think? coalition is against Demeter: Gaia facilitates. Other gods later try to
convince her to go along.
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exceptions: Hekate and Helios. Left over from older religions.
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supplication of Helios. Compare with Priam and Achilleus or Thetis and Zeus. Helos and
Demeter are equals = different tactic. Respect me = tell me.
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Helios: good bridegroom. why? Power stays in the family – marriage of daughter to
brother’s sons is a common Greek pattern. This marriage unites two worlds. This is
good.
Q: What will the terms of the opening conflict be?
Male/Female
Olympian/Chthonic
Divine/Human
Immortal/Mortal
Young/Old
Marriage/Virginity
Joy/Sorrow
On the right, all are patriarchal. On the left they are not so much matriarchal as opposed-to-patriarchal
NANNY EPISODE
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Q: What town does Demeter end up in Eleusis! Because she has to. After the fact. Etiology. This is the center of
the cult.
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Q: why is this episode here? Why not just brood like Achilleus?
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A: she takes the conflict into the human realm, where she does have power.
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A: She enters a patriarchal world, but women have an honored place there. Helps accommodate her to
place in a male-dominated society.
Q: what story does she tell and what does it suggest?
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Q: what do women do in this society? A: run the household. Domestic space kept female, and they have complete
control over household gods, tapestry, kids, servants.
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A: abduction. Only a superficially false narrative. It’s about enforced submission to men and
enslavement to their desires. She complains of no price for her at the end.
Notice how women take her in and protect her.
Q: why won’t Demeter eat or drink? What propitiates her? What is the function of this scene?
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A: power of goddess; her search for recognition and respect. Withdrawl as punishment for Zeus’ blow.
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A: possible description of preliminary (public) mysteries.
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Q: why does Demeter adopt a child? A: Substitution. What is she trying to achieve? Iliad’s Q: what compensation
for death is there? What does he conclude? None - Niobe story – weeping forever. Demeter looking for
compensation. Traditionally, compensation was a blood price. Both Achilleus and Demeter fail to gain anything
that functions successfully in this way.
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Q: what is ironic about Demeter’s adoption? She does to Elusiens what Zeus does to her.
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Q: what does making the child immortal represent? Pg 8 lns 239-275
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A: replication of secret practices of ritual.
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A: function of Kleos (a type of immortality)
Q: Why a boy?
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A: inadequacy of all substitutions?
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A: compensation for powerlessness of Demeter as a woman god? The boy will be powerful, she can
make him immortal – a REAL threat to Zeus? Like Thetis’ son?
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A: need a guy for a fertility ritual?
Q: what happens when she is caught? Prophesy of civil war.
THE GODS
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Q: what are the gods worried about?
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A: Extinction of humans = no offerings.
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Q: do gods suffer? What does it mean if mortals can surpass the gods in understanding grief and
death?
Q: why don’t Zeus’ embassies work? Ln 325.
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A: reminder of limitation of his power. Fragility of system. Zeus at Demeter’s mercy.
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Q: why send Rhea?
Q: what might the compromise mean for the gods?
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A: dead for part of the year, fewer offerings, a compromise in power. God’s need for humans is a
limitation for the gods.
Q: Why is the Pomegranate story different 1st time and 2nd time? (pgs 12 and 13)
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Q: What does it mean if she willingly takes the seed?
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A: Rape story vs. guest-host story. She’s either free or bound to Hades.
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Q: How does Zeus settle this problem? A: balance and negotiation. Principal of negotiation.
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Q: What does Demeter’s acceptance of this deal represent? A: acceptance of the patriarchal system,
and of her special, honored place within it.
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Q: why a pomegranate: Symbolizes blood and death, fertility and marriage, but male and female
deities.
Q: How does this story explain the seasons?
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Q: Why was Persephone chosen? What does the context suggest? (flowers, fertility, ripeness, spring)
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Q: What does it mean that she disappears? A: Persephone is planted in the ground for an incubating
time. Seed time.
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Q: Why do goddess fail to give immortality to mortals/ (Thetis & Achilleus, Demeter and son)
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Q: What is the view of life here? Life as a compromise with death vs. utopia of immortality. Hymn accounts for
many unpleasant aspects of life. Persephone plays role of initiate in a ceremony whose purpose is to ensure a better
life. She makes possible movement between worlds.
CONCLUSION
 “How to be a Mother Goddess in a Patriarchal Society”
 The female element in the world is the agency that transforms mortal dependence on the gods and helplessness
before them into a more genuinely reciprocal relationship. The relationship between the female and male
deities thus parallels that between the human and divine worlds.
 We are given a ritual to make life bearable but this is inadequate to the realities we face (civil war)
 History repeating itself to make cosmos unstable
 Fundamental instability of Greek myth system.
GENRE
 Q: how does this hymn compare to others you may have seen in the text?
 A: shorter. Not a prelude to a longer tale as the others. Designed to defy its genre.
 The Iliad defies its genre too:
 Kleos: means glory, but is also the term for dactylic hexameter1 When Achilleus questions the very
importance or meaning of Kleos is not only calling tribal fame into question, but also calling the very
genre of Homer into question.
 Story of Niobe, in 24. 602-617. In most versions, One of Niobe’s children survives, and he is Neleus,
father of Nestor. Nestor cannot exist in The Iliad, for the story Achilleus tells kills him. The Iliad is an
impossibility in its own terms. There is no one left, and she broods forever—there is no compensation for
death for her. Nor for Achilleus. What about Demeter?
 Achilleus’ reason for telling it is to say that even Niobe ate. In this sense, then, Demeter in the Hymn is
being entirely unreasonable—not even Niobe, nor Priam refuses to eat. But Achilleus does. And Demeter
does. Are their angers the same? Demeter’s is actually cholos, not Menis—so they are not the same, it
seems. Why is this? I have no idea! Gall. Bitter Anger. Toward someone.
LINKS WITH THE ILIAD
DEMETER AND ACHILLEUS
 Poems are of their anger. Here, though, choles and not Menis.
 Abduction of one child, and then another.
 Demeter withdraws. Refuses to eat. Brings hordes of people to edge (and perhaps beyond) of death.
 Thetis/Achilleus; Demeter/Demophoon.
 How are they different? Philos is clearly huge for Demeter, as it is for Achilleus. Demeter can manage to
regain her position without her own death. Only because she is immortal?
HOW DOES THIS POEM DIFFER FROM THE ILIAD?
 It is a prayer before reciting a longer poem (an epic, perhaps).
 Not a tragedy. What is a tragedy? This is how Achilleus and Demeter are different—this is not the story of
one tragic flaw being brought to its inevitable end.
 It is fairly damn “tragic” for the Eleusinians, and yet not a tragedy.
 It also breaks convention by being much monger than The Iliad, but it is not unmanageable—it is not the
super-poem that cannot be sung, as the 15,000-line Homeric poems are.
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(six dactyls, (one stressed followed by two unstressed syllables), though often in fact ending with a
spondee (two stressed) or a trochee (first stressed, second unstressed).
Fun Fact: “Barbarian” = “Ba ba ba ba” = imitation of speech. Romans took this Greek word, but their barbarians were
Goths and hairy, so barbarians were hairy outsiders. A “barbar” cuts the hair of a barbarian.
DETAILED BACKGROUND INFO
Age of site:
 Archeological evidence for cult site at Eleusis in 15th c BC – little info.
 More substantial remains in 8th c BC
 Late 7th c BC: temple built; Eleusis gets absorbed into Athens
Sources of info for Mysteries
 Archeological (architectural and iconographic) (remains cotemp with bardic recitation of Iliad)
 Epigraphic (sacred laws and other inscriptions)
 Literary (in general allusion).
Ritual History
 Priest and priestess from two families
 Mysteries open to all who spoke Greek and hadn’t committed murder in classical period (479-323 BV) (slave,
male, female, free, etc.) Most Athenians initiated.
 Initiation not exclusive – you could participate in other mysteries and cults.
 The mysteries were interdicted by Theodosius, a Christian Emperor, who closed down sects and the Olympics.
 The Telesterion (hall where mysteries were practiced) probably destroyed byt the Goths in the years just
before 400 CE.
 Run of cult: 1500 BC to 400 AD – Not bad!
 2 versions of practices: 1) real and 2) destructive, violent, fake (Christian)
 Cult associated with seasons – explains the seasons.
 Rituals were part of town planning – fundraising
o This is also the origin of tragedy – 2 economic festivals were also tragedy festivals. Entertainment for
the crowds.
o Theaters for tragedy also the site for the cult of Dionysius. Stage was the alter for scarify. Tragedy
means “goat song” (death scream?)
Ritual:
 Greater mysteries: 10 day festival held in autumn before fall planting in Athens and Eleusis
- Young men of military age left Athens for Eleusis. They escorted the holy objects in round boxes from
Eleusis to the Eleusinion at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens.
- Initiands gathered in Agora fro proclamation that those “impure in hands or incomprehensible in
speech” should not participate
- Initiands processed to the sea where they bathed
- Sacrifices to Demeter and Persephone
- Initiands stayed indoors for a festival for Asklepios, god of healing; they may have fasted
- Holy objects were taken back to Eleusis in solemn procession. (holy objects in closed chests, a stature
of a deity associated with Dionysos, initiands, priests, council members, citizens, onlookers)
- The procession would stop for sacrifice, prayer, singing, dancing, ritual bathing.
- On a bridge on the boundary between Athens and Eleusis, masked figures hurled insults and
obscenities at initiands
- The initiands were welcomed at Eleusis and broke their fast
- Women engaged in a nocturnal song and dance that included obscene language
 Secret Mysteries
- Secret initiation inside the Telesterion. Little information. Initiands seem to have experienced in some
form the sufferings and reunion of the goddesses.
- Modern reconstructrions valenced by Christian writers.
Climatic ceremony was a “viewing” in which holy objects were brought out of an inner changer by the
chief priest and shown to initiands. What were the objects? A grain? Representations of genitalia?
Mortar and pestle? Who knows.
- Ceremonial formula or password is reported by Clement of Alexandria as “I fasted, I drank the kykeon
(drink of barley, water and herbs), I have taken from the chest, I worked, and depositied in the basket
and from the basket into the chest”
- Late sources tell of a mystic drama – renactement of the myth
- A sacred marriage between the chief priest and priestess may have occurred. The chief priest was said
to announce the birth of a divine child – Ploutos, the god of wealth.
Rites followed by dancing and sacrifice. Two vessels were filled and poured out, to the east and west.
Participants cried “Rain!” to the sky and “Conceive!” to the earth.
Promise of Blessing: the mysteries promised a more prosperous life and a different and better fate after death
for the initiated. What was conveyed in the secret rites was not secret knowledge or dogma, but an experience
that left the initiand in a changed state of mind.
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Thoughts and Questions On the Mysteries
 Q: why insults? A: aspects of sexuality are taboo, insults are a way of distancing yourself. Also, the traditional
use of a scapegoat figure to take out negative aspects may be in play. Poetry of abuse (opposite epic) was a
prominent genre. Greek comedy based on insults.
 Q: why no murder? A: A cult about life.
 Q: why so democratic or free market? Competition for religious hegemony – for power.
 Q: Role of Dionysis? A: part of public aspect of ceremony. There is no evidence for alcohol inside the
ceremony.
 Q: Are other cults mysterious? No. This is chthonic – about the mystery of reproduction.
- Adam myth is chthonic (tree of good and evil = pomegranet)
- Not coincidence or line of influence. Shared features.
- Apollo’s cult is open and clear. Athene is judicial.
- Cthonic origin not necessarily good: Adam, Oedipus
Definitions:
1. Furies
the Erinyes (the Romans called them the Furies) were female personifications of vengeance. They were usually said to
have been born from the blood of Uranus that fell upon Gaia when Cronus castrated him; i.e., they were chthonic
(earth) deities. But for the most part they were understood as the persecutors of mortal men and women who broke
"natural" laws. In particular, those who broke ties of kinship through patricide, murdering a brother (parricide), or
other such familial killings brought special attention from the Erinyes. It was believed in early epochs that human
beings might not have the right to punish such crimes, instead leaving the matter to the dead man's Erinyes to exact
retribution.
2. Maenads
In Greek mythology, Maenads [MEE-nads] were female worshippers of Dionysus, the Greek god of mystery, wine and
intoxication. The word literally translates as "raving ones". They were known as wild, insane women who could not be
reasoned with. The mysteries of Dionysus inspired the women to ecstatic frenzy; they indulged in copious amounts of
violence, bloodletting, sex and self-intoxication and mutilation. They were usually pictured as crowned with vine
leaves, clothed in fawnskins and carrying the thyrsus, and dancing with the wild abandonment of complete union with
primeval nature. The Maenads were also known as Bassarids (or Bacchae or Bacchantes) in Roman mythology, after
the penchant for the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a fox-skin, a bassaris.
3. Hekate
Hekate is a pre-olympian earth goddess (wilderness and childbirth). It is certain that her origin is Asia Minor (Karia /
Thrace). The greek sources don't have a similar story of her parents or her relations in the greek pantheon: Sometimes
Hecate is a Titaness , daughter of Perses and Asteria, who is a mighty helper and protector of mankind. She is a
Titaness who was not banned into the underworldrealms after their defeat through the Olympians, because she was the
only Titan that aided Zeus. It is also told that she is the daughter of Demeter or Pheraia, which appears understandable
due to the fact, that Hecate like Demeter was a goddess of the earth and fertility. Or that she may even be a daughter of
Zeus. Like many ancient mother or earth-goddesses she remains unmarried and has no regular consort. On the other
side she is the mother of many monsters, f.e. of Scylla.