DEMETER PAGE TWO

 Demeter’s tragic story is her search for Persephone (Kore), Demeter’s only child from her union with Zeus, the King of the Olympians.

Persephone grew up happy, playing with Artemis and Athena, the other children of Zeus, but one day her uncle, Hades, fell desperately in love with her.

One morning, while she was picking flowers in a meadow along with her girlfriends, the earth opened wide and Hades appeared, riding an awesome chariot that was pulled by four black horses.

Persephone was abducted by Hades and dragged down to the Underworld with him. Hearing her daughter's screams, Demeter rushed to her aid but wasn't able to find her. She had disappeared under the earth, but her mother didn't know this.

Heartbroken, Demeter searched the entire earth without stopping to eat, drink or take care of herself. Disillusioned once she discovered the identity of the abductor she decided to leave Olympus and renounce her divine duties until Persephone was returned to her.

Demeter's self-imposed exile caused the earth to go barren and Zeus, who was responsible for maintaining order in the world, finally commanded his brother Hades to give back Persephone.

Because she had eaten seven seeds from a pomegranate while in the Underworld, however, Persephone was bound to remain there.

An arrangement was eventually worked out and Demeter's daughter later returned to earth with the condition that she spends four months of each year with Hades.

In these months Demeter misses her daughter so much that she withdraws her gifts from the earth, and winter comes. But when her daughter returns, Demeter is so happy that she restores all her gifts and spring starts.

The epic poet Homer claims that the goddess Hecate was an assistant to Demeter while she searched for her daughter and afterwards she became Persephone's attendant in the Underworld.

During the search for her daughter Demeter had visited the city of Eleusis and taken a job as a nurse to a royal family. She took care of the infant, a mortal named Triptolemus, using her powers in an attempt to make the boy immortal. When he grew older Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot of winged Dragons and bushels of wheat with which, flying through the sky, he sowed the whole inhabited earth.

She was known as a kind goddess and not usually vindictive, but to punish the Sirens for not coming to the assistance of her daughter when she was being kidnapped, Demeter transformed them into flying creatures, the scourge of ancient sailors.

Another time, while looking for her daughter, Demeter came to the region of Attica. She was very thirsty, for she had been traveling far and wide, and was relieved to see a spring with cool clear water.

As she thirstily lapped the refreshing water, she was startled to hear a man named Ascalabus, laughing  at her because of her way of drinking. Embarrassed at this, distraught at the loss of her daughter, and angry at Ascalabus for being so rude,  Demeter turned him into a gecko, which is a small insect-eating lizard.

There was another instance where the goddess proved to be cruel: A mortal named Erysichthon cut down an oak tree sacred to Demeter. In order to punish this profane act, the goddess sent endless famine to the poor man. As much as Erysichthon ate, so much he desired again. There was no satisfying him, and he ate constantly until at the end he ate himself and died.

Either to test Zeus' ability to know all, or simply to show what a good host he was, a man named Tantalus slaughtered his own son, Pelops, cut him up, boiled the pieces and offered them as a meal at a feast of the gods. Of all the gods only Demeter unknowingly ate his arm, but when this outrage was discovered he was given life again by the will of the gods. His limbs were joined together but the shoulder was not complete, so Demeter fitted an ivory one in its place.

The myth of Demeter and her daughter embodies the idea that the productive powers of the earth or nature come to rest, or are concealed during the winter season.

The goddess (Demeter and Persephone, also called Cora or Kore, are here identified) then rules in the depth of the earth mournful, but striving upwards to the all-animating light.

Persephone, who has eaten of the pomegranate, is the fructified flower that returns in spring, dwells in the region of light during a portion of the year, and nourishes men and animals with her fruits.

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