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#hymn to demeter
theoi-crow · 9 months
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The original Hymn to Demeter (aka the Hades and Persephone myth) is a lot more empowering than the modern retellings of the myth!
Reducing Demeter's role in her own myth not only hurts the original culture whose myth modern authors have distorted but it also cheapens the very empowering message that shook ancient Greece!
The reason why this story has always stood out was because it was a story about a loving mother caring for her daughter's well being by fighting the world along with every god that got in her way.
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Modern retellings disregard the original context and choose modern topics like the difficult relationship between an overbearing mother and a tired daughter who dreams of freedom. Without proper historical context, they superimpose their own complicated relationship with their mothers and assume their desire to leave the house they were raised in might also be true for Persephone. These retellings show that modern authors don't understand the difficult life ancient Greek women had to face.
To an ancient Greek mother, the death of a daughter was NO different than her daughter's wedding because she was expected to be okay with never seeing her daughter again.
This is why Persephone marries the god of the Underworld. As a goddess that cultivates the earth by creating life, this was the one place Demeter could not visit at the time of Persephone's kidnapping.
The marriage between Persephone and Hades also represented young girls who died before they were able to marry because young girls who died before their wedding were buried in their wedding attire and were called the "brides of Hades" with their deathbeds also being described as their eternal bridal chambers: (Source Link)
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There's an example of this custom in Sophocles' Antigone when the king of Thebes, Creon, sentences his niece Antigone to death and as she is getting ready to die she describes her death prison as a bridal chamber and says Persephone's name: (Source Link)
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This was also a time period that placed a higher value on sons over daughters! This was a world that ignored the pain of a mother losing her daughter but that same mother was expected to mourn her son via performing an elaborate ritual that required her to tear out her hair and scar her face: (Source Link)
Also, most women in ancient Greece did not have a say in who their daughters married and since it wasn't unusual for grooms to come from out of town they often didn't know where their daughters would be living. The details of the marriage was between the groom and the bride's father who were often close in age, which is why Hades is older than Zeus since Zeus is the youngest of Chronus' children.
Neither the mother nor daughter knew about the arrangements between the father and the groom so bridal kidnappings were very common as well. The kidnapping of the bride was also an ancient Greek custom, which is why Hades kidnapped Persephone when Demeter wasn't looking.
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Marriage was also a defining feature of a girl turning into a women so most brides were married by the time they were 14 though some we're younger while others were a bit older depending on the law and political arrangements: (Source Link)
So if Hades went through the proper channels to marry her, then why is it so empowering?
Even though Hades and Zeus followed tradition to pass Persephone from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead without telling Demeter, Demeter broke customs because of the love she had for her young daughter. She was supposed to quietly accept Persephone's fate especially since the most powerful gods among the Olympians were the three kings so who was she to fight two out of the three kings?
Demeter understood her predicament but when Zeus told her there was nothing she could do about it. She did just that. She stopped and did NOTHING.
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She stopped cultivating the earth, she stopped making things grow, she stopped feeding the humans and the animals used for sacrifices and soon everything and everyone started dying.
Hades had an unexpected influx of the dead all repeating Demeter's message of longing to see her daughter and Zeus started getting harassed by gods who panicked about their worshippers dying, losing more worshippers who thought this was their fault and losing sacrifices. Both gods were being pressured to give in to Demeter's demands.
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The hymn to Demeter was so impactful it became a secret cult: Not only did she win the ability to see her daughter for part of the year but Demeter's love for Persephone became so legendary that it kick-started the Eleusinian Mysteries (LINK) which also established the Elysian Fields since it was believed that heroes who had proven their worth and those initiated into the mysteries would be granted access in the afterlife (this is often described to be the closest place to an Abrahamic heaven) : (LINK)
Prior to the kidnapping of Persephone, Hades only had one area for dead humans which is described as such a miserable place that in the Odyssey, Achilles said he would rather be a slave to the poorest man in the land of the living than be in the land of the dead: (LINK) so we can date the beginning of the Elysian Fields becoming a prominent feature of Hades after the Odyssey was written (8th century BCE).
Allowing Demeter to be the main character in her own hymn gives a voice to mothers and ancient women
so by reducing Demeter's role you reduce their voices as well. By taking away Demeter's achievements and importance you take away the struggles real women had to face.
By making Demeter seem overbearing and Persephone tired of being "trapped" by her mother you not only lose the context that Demeter had been previously raped by both Zeus and Poseidon so she feared Hades might be doing the same to her daughter but you cause a rift between the relationship of these two goddesses whose love for each other was so strong it rearranged the original map of the Underworld and caused a climate shift that now featured Fall and Winter.
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Demeter's myth also explains ancient marital customs and death rites:
By making Persephone seem like a willing participant in her own marriage you are stripping the meaning of these old traditions. It was very rare for a bride to have a say in who she was marrying, that was between her future husband and her father (or whichever man was the head of the household at the time).
Persephone also represents the cruelty of sudden death taking girls who never got to marry so making her a willing participant makes her seem like she's eager to take her own life in order to get away from her mother which might be how some modern people feel about their toxic relationship with their own mothers but it strips the ancient cultural context and meaning.
By changing the role of Demeter you lose the historical context attached to the original myth. You lose the struggle these women had and cheapen the severity that comes with losing a loved one and being forced to accept that you will never see them again. By making Hades seem like an ideal husband you lose Persephone's dilemma of having to accept that she'll never see her mother again and she never even got to say goodbye. And by doing the kind of retellings that are seen today you lose the fact that in the original myth neither Persephone nor Demeter consented to this arrangement because ancient women were not allowed autonomy over their bodies or their fates so:
Demeter forcing both Zeus and Hades to return her daughter she forced them to acknowledge their autonomy and although not entirely successful she gave ancient women a fighting chance
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grendel-menz · 2 years
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She cried with a piercing voice,
                calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best.
                But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals,
           heard her voice. Not even the olive trees which bear their splendid harvest.
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sea-owl · 3 months
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You know I love reading and hearing different myths, I love seeing retellings of those myths but there is one myth in my personal opinion that is never done justice and frankly some opinions on it give me the ick.
That myth is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter aka the Abduction of Persephone.
Now I know these stories have been passed down for ages, often changed or differ from region to region, but a lot of people use the Homeric hymns as a source and a base for their retellings.
The Hymn to Demeter is a story of a mother's grief as her daughter was ripped away from her without her consent nor any warning from Persephone's absent father Zeus. Zeus, who during those times had more say over what happens to Persephone than Demeter who loved and raised her daughter.
In the Hymn, Demeter basically went to work and came home to find her daughter missing. She was then searching for her daughter for days with no answers until one of the other gods took pity and told Demeter that Persephone had been taken by Hades. She begged to have her daughter brought back to her, but when she was denied, Demeter went on strike, her grief too great. Without her doing her job, crops died, people starved, and the gods were not receiving offerings. In a time where Demeter should have been powerless, she instead took back that power and was able to see her daughter again for half a year.
Onto Persephone's side of the Hymn she doesn't really have a voice. Literally, she doesn't speak at all during the Hymn, and she is constantly confused and swaying back and forth on the line between daughter and wife. Which thinking about this now, I can see Persephone still playing this balancing game between her split times of the year she has with her mother and husband.
As for why I don't like many retellings of this myth is the fact that a lot of people want to raise up Hades and sometimes give Persephone more agency at the cost of demonizing Demeter and her grief. This often happens by turning Demeter into the controlling mother / mother in-law from hell. Girl was grieving her daughter being ripped away from her and y'all turned her into a monster.
I think there is a way to highlight a love story between Hades and Persephone and give Persephone more agency without demonizing Demeter, but it takes careful balancing act. One that probably involves holding Hades responsible for his part and putting some blame on Zeus, too.
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ae-neon · 3 months
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What kills me about a lot of the popular romanticisation of Hades and Persephone is that you have to be more misogynistic than the Ancient Greeks, an ironically herculean feat btw
to take a story that's a metaphor for the experiences of mothers and daughters in forced or arranged marriages
Write out the mom
AND
Make it about the kidnapper 😭
+ a lot of the time these Hades Bois are not even good parallels?? They are incompetent and cruel and self-serving, they put a crown on their hostage and call it love
The Persephones are said to blossom into girlboss slay queens when Persephone™ was born a goddess in her own right, because she was the daughter of powerful and respected parents, not granted it by her husband
The Persephone disregards her family and her home, it was never fleshed out or important or a big enough part of her to matter
While Persephone™ was so attached and interwoven with her home and family that her absence/her mother's grief causes the earth itself to change. Persephone™ is as much an earth goddess as an underworld goddess and yet...
Everything is lost in favour of bad guy aesthetics for the Hades Boi, his trauma, his backstory, his violence and power and sex appeal
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divinepithets · 6 months
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Persephone and the seeds
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petaltexturedskies · 1 year
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Persephone was picking flowers: roses, crocus, and beautiful violets up and down the soft meadow. Iris blossoms too she picked, and hyacinth. And the narcissus, which was grown as a lure for the flower-faced girl by Gaia. (…) It was a wondrous thing in its splendor. To look at it gives a sense of holy awe to the immortal gods as well as mortal humans. Its sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies up above. And the earth below smiled back in all its radiance. So too the churning mass of the salty sea. She was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands to take hold of the pretty plaything. And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her.
Homer, excerpt of an homeric hymn to demeter
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kores-pomegranate · 1 year
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Hades’ whispered vows to Persephone are taken from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and I am NOT OKAY 😭😭😭
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naokomayumi · 9 days
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"But when the earth shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men."
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sarafangirlart · 3 months
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I feel like ppl either over-hate or over-love Persephone x Hades. I’m more in the middle where I enjoy it when it’s done well but dislike it when it’s not and I feel both sides need to chill out.
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Persephone and Hades 🥀
(Not romantic)
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ghost-town-dwellers · 2 months
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demeter and persephone’s mother daughter dance
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hippodameia · 6 months
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I don‘t want to read another retelling, where Persephone is a bossy girl opposing her overbearing, controlling mother, who finds true love with a morally-grey Hades. In this scenario, as empowering as it sometimes seems at the start, the ultimate salvation offered for Persephone is still a husband.
I understand you want to give her a voice. And a few retellings in that style would be fine. But why not give her a voice, where she doesn’t find rescue in a man from a woman. Why not keeping the essence of the myth?
And I also don’t think every story needs a Happy End.
I would like to read a story where women have a voice who are abducted by men, who are under the pressure of the patriarchy, where men have decided their fate. Zeus and Hades have decided for her, and she is too young to see the trap. And after the abduction, it is unclear what happens, but it seems maybe she got hard and cold due to her suffering.
And of course, women enable patriarchy, too. But in the myth, we have Gaia who helps the men. Why is Demeter often portrayed so negatively? She tries to oppose her brothers and discovers her power in fertility by not offering it to the earth. And in the myth, she almost wins.
And Persephone does want to return, this is why she does so for a time, every year. And maybe she arranged with her husband and found herself a role of power in the underworld despite the fact that all agency was taken from her.
There is nothing weak in being a victim of patriarchy and those stories are worth telling, too.
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coloricioso · 1 year
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did Persephone actually did get SA by hades in actual story/gen
i dont know much since yk im not greek myself
Hi. I'm not Greek though, I'm Chilean, just in case. I've been studying obsessively this myth for 10 years (and hopefully next year I will have finished studying Classics at university). 😂 all of my essays and works at university were about Persephone's myth (except one essay I made for Medea, and other of Socrates).
Short answer: no.
The Hymn to Demeter is a sacred religious song to praise the goddess Demeter. It has a religious context that unfortunately always gets ignored when people analyze this myth. People forget that this myth has multiple layers of meaning and interpretation and that Persephone's abduction works as a metaphor for death. Think of Christianity and Jesus' figure. Jesus gives us hope, because he, being a mortal son of God, is able to resurrect. Persephone, as a goddess, cannot die. So, how would the ancient Greeks have a religious figure who spoke about death-life, hope for the afterlife, renewal, and other spiritually meaningful concepts? In this context, of immortal gods, a deity being taken into an inaccessible world (Hades) is the answer. Since Persephone can't die, the equivalent of her death is having her taken away into the underworld.
Now, quickly speaking. 1) The Hymn never says Persephone was raped. There is no word or verb to speak of sexual violence. She was abducted violently, but not raped. We are told she gets taken into the underworld, and later we are told that Hades and Persephone are together and that she misses her mom. We are not told she hates her husband, or that she was mistreated, nothing of that. Some people come in like "it's obvious that he raped her once they were in the underworld", but it does not work like that. In the same way, we could speculate the opposite thing (like Claudian's version of the myth where, after taking her away, Hades is tender to Persephone and tries to calm her down). 2) EVEN, if she was raped, we need to focus on the fact that human morality does not apply to gods, they are not human in the first place. I have never been able to understand, through all these years, why people think of Persephone as if she were a human being, and then, they think of her as a "little girl". Please remember this myth, baby Hermes, A BABY, literally goes to steal Apollo's cow, is able to speak, is able to create things, and so on... Gods are immortal, supreme, and powerful beings. Persephone is of marriageable age (for the ancient Greeks the age would be 15 to 22 approximately), so if just-born Hermes was powerful, imagine how much powerful Persephone was. Then, gods can be violent to each other and still love each other (take Zeus and Hera, for example). It's absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical to try to apply our moral modern standards to divine beings. 3) I can make a separate post for this if you want, but the Hymn it's pretty clear and explicit that the pomegranate episode it's about food. It's not sex, it's food. And many mythologies and religions all around the world had the belief that eating the food of the underworld tied the soul to that world.
The topic is very lengthy, and I've written before about it. Unfortunately I had a tag called "writings on greek myth" and now the tag search does not function anymore, but I gathered some of the posts manually:
About the abduction, pomegranate and others.
Persephone's myth
Similar question and the answer
About the daffodil meaning
Persephone and food
Summary of key concepts of the Hymn
Persephone's active role in the Hymn
Whether Persephone loves Hades or not
Persephone's honors
About Persephone's name
So, to conclude. Does the Hymn say Persephone was raped? No. And even if we want to take any part of the Hymn as a metaphor that she was raped, it is meaningless anyway, because we need to understand the story in its right cultural and religious context. The people who are obsessed with the idea of Hades raping Persephone absolutely ignore all of the factors I'm telling you. They erase the Eleusinian Mysteries context, the fact the Hymn is a religious song, that Demeter-Persephone-Hades were worshipped together, that the whole archaeology remains we have of Hades and Persephone show them as a peaceful marriage, the concept of marriage-to-death, Persephone's connection with marriage and brides, and so on and so on... The average HxP hater is only able to say "this is a myth about mothers and daughters" and forgets the other 90% of the Hymn's meaning.
So, please, if you like, read the other posts, and if you have further questions ask me. I think it's easier to counterargument specific statements rather than explaining the whole Hymn, because, again, it's lengthy. 😥
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theoi-crow · 11 months
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Happy Mother's Day to the one who was ready to burn down the world and was willing to extinguish herself and the rest of the gods all for her daughter!
Demeter!
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gotstabbedbyapen · 3 months
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Heyo!!! >:D
Do you have a favorite Greek Myth?
What is your favorite Euripides' work?
What is your favorite food?
(btw, thank you so much for that lovely little doodle you did 🥺 It was very sweet and cute)
Hello Mads~~~
My favorite Greek myth is the love story of Apollo and Hyacinthus, otherwise known as The Origin of Hyacinth Flowers!
They don't have many detailed records, but I especially love the one written by Ovid (I know it's a Roman source but credit is where credit is due). This one in particular caught me:
“I can see in your sad wound my own guilt, and you are my cause of grief and self-reproach. My own hand gave you death unmerited—I only can be charged with your destruction.—What have I done wrong? Can it be called a fault to play with you? Should loving you be called a fault? And oh, that I might now give up my life for you! Or die with you!" (Apollo laments Hyacinthus' death)
You don't often see a god mourning their mortal lover this hard, let alone wishing to DIE WITH THEM. I teared up a bit when reading it.
Also, here are three honorable moments worth mentioning: The Hymn to Demeter, The Birth of Artemis and Apollo, and Baucis and Philemon. I just love Demeter and Leto so much, their unconditional love for their children is everything. And the old married couple is so admirable.
I haven't read much of Euripides' work, but so far my favorite one is the play "Helen". At first, I thought the story of Helen staying in Egypt during the whole Trojan War was so fanfiction-y. I give it a read one time without expecting much, but the play blows me away!
Helen is so likable in this. She was framed for causing the war and cursed by all the Greeks, but she still stood tall and unyieldingly waited for Menelaus. Helen in this play is very much like Penelope in The Odyssey.
And finally, my favorite food:
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This one will definitely give away my nationality XDDD
If anyone can tell where I'm from based on that food picture, I will give you a 🥇
(btw i'm happy that you like that silly doodle :333)
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ae-neon · 11 months
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Hades and Persephone
Disclaimer: this rant is not about fanfic - fandom is a free space and what the next person does is none of my business.
This is more YA and how certain works may influence and harm young, impressionable readers.
It's also about misogyny in shallow "feminist" retellings
I have work to do so of course I'm going to procrastinate in a very random way: Hating on the modernised, girlboss but actually misogynist version of the myth and turning the camera back to who the story is actually about: the bereaved milf Demeter.
Obviously, as a whole the Greek gods are not meant to be pillars of modern or even ancient moral values. And there's nothing wrong with imagining Hades as more than creepy uncle.
But reimagining this exact myth in a way that demonises the loving and concerned mother Demeter is misogynistic.
Won't get into how reimagining it as Persephone being not just wiling but the mastermind puts the "blame" of kidnapping and sa on the little girl and sounds eerily similar to how predators speak
The Hymn is a song of praise for Demeter, the story is not "told from her perspective" the story is about her.
And I often think it's done by people who are mostly unaware of any real knowledge of the myth outside of pop culture. That's not a dig, not everyone has the time, resources or even the want to read up on it.
But, maybe, if you're gonna write about something - even if you don't plan to stick to the original - a little research would help.
So here's most of the original story
(Translation by H.G. Evelyn-White)
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter
[Hades kidnaps Persephone while she in a field of flowers]
He caught her up reluctant on his golden car and bare her away lamenting. Then she cried out shrilly with her voice, calling upon her father, (...)
[Persephone screams for help so loudly her voice carries over the Earth and reaches even Olympus but her father (Zeus) doesn't help because he agreed to it already]
So [Hades], that son of Cronos, of many names, who is Ruler of Many and Host of Many, was bearing her away by leave of Zeus on his immortal chariot – his own brother’s child and all unwilling.
[In her 'final' moments, Persephone takes in the Earth - her natural domain - and yearns for it, her mother and Olympus]
And so long as [Persephone], the goddess, yet beheld earth and starry heaven and the strong flowing sea where fishes shoal, and the rays of the sun, and still hoped to see her dear mother and the tribes of the eternal gods, so long hope calmed her great heart for all her trouble...
[Demeter hears Persephone screaming, rushes to her and looks for her - completely distraught and wrecked by grief]
Bitter pain seized her heart, and she rent the covering upon her divine hair with her dear hands: her dark cloak she cast down from both her shoulders and sped, like a wild-bird, over the firm land and yielding sea, seeking her child.
But no one would tell her the truth, neither god nor mortal man; and of the birds of omen none came with true news for her. Then for nine days queenly Deo wandered over the earth with flaming torches in her hands, so grieved that she never tasted ambrosia and the sweet draught of nectar, nor sprinkled her body with water
[On the 10th day Hecate takes Demeter to Helios, who witnessed the kidnapping, and Demeter pleads to him:]
"(...) Through the fruitless air I heard the thrilling cry of my daughter whom I bare, sweet scion of my body and lovely in form, as of one seized violently; though with my eyes I saw nothing. But you – for with your beams you look down from the bright upper air over all the earth and sea – tell me truly of my dear child, if you have seen her anywhere, what god or mortal man has violently seized her against her will and mine, and so made off .”
[Helios ultimately tries to comfort her saying Hades isn't a bad match in status but before that says:]
And the Son of Hyperion answered her: “Queen Demeter, daughter of rich-haired Rhea, I will tell you the truth; for I greatly reverence and pity you in your grief for your trim-ankled daughter. None other of the deathless gods is to blame, but only cloud-gathering Zeus who gave her to Hades, her father’s brother, to be called his buxom wife. And Hades seized her and took her loudly crying in his chariot down to his realm of mist and gloom.
[Demeter is further saddened and enraged by the added betrayal]
But grief yet more terrible and savage came into the heart of Demeter, and thereafter she was so angered with the dark-clouded Son of Cronos that she avoided the gathering of the gods and high Olympos.
[Demeter disguises herself as a mortal and takes on the form of a weathered, 'elderly' (more likely middle aged) woman. She then goes to the city of Eleusis.]
Vexed in her dear heart, she sat near the wayside by the Maiden Well, from which the women of the place were used to draw water, in a shady place over which grew an olive shrub. And she was like an ancient woman who is cut off from childbearing and the gifts of garland loving Aphrodite, like the nurses of kings’ children who deal justice, or like the housekeepers in their echoing halls.
She meets 4 daughters of King Celeus (Callithoe, Demo, Callidice and Cleisidice) who are probably around the same age as Persephone and described as "like goddesses in the flower of their girlhood".
The girls don't know her - not just as the goddess but as a person - but nonetheless they worry about her and tell her to come into the town to be with other women, older and younger, who would "welcome [her] by both by word and by deed."
Demeter tells them her name is Doso, from Crete, and that she was captured by pirates and brought over but managed to escape. She asks the girls if there's any work in the household for a woman her age - including housekeeping, teaching younger women or nursing and rearing a newborn child.
[Callidice tells 'Doso' about good households that might be in need of help but says that in their own house, their 'elderly' mother - Metaneira - has just had a son]
She has an only son, late-born, who is being nursed in our well-built house, a child of many prayers and welcome: if you could bring him up until he reached the full measure of youth, any one of womankind who should see you would straightway envy you, such gifts would our mother give for his upbringing.”
[Demeter arrives at the house and Metaneira, who feels her prescence right away, gives up her chair despite being a nursing mother with her baby in her hands and the wife of the king.]
But the goddess walked to the threshold: and her head reached the roof and she filled the doorway with a heavenly radiance. Then awe and reverence and pale fear took hold of Metaneira, and she rose up from her couch before Demeter, and bade her be seated.
But Demeter, bringer of seasons and giver of perfect gifts, would not sit upon the bright couch, but stayed silent with lovely eyes cast down until careful Iambe placed a jointed seat for her and threw over it a silvery fleece. Then she sat down and held her veil in her hands before her face.
A long time she sat upon the stool without speaking because of her sorrow, and greeted no one by word or by sign, but rested, never smiling, and tasting neither food nor drink, because she pined with longing for her deep-bosomed daughter, until careful Iambe – who pleased her moods in aftertime also – moved the holy lady with many a quip and jest to smile and laugh and cheer her heart.
*[Iambe is the slave of king Celeus but also daughter of the god, Pan and the nymph, Echo. She is the only one who made Demeter feel better.]
[Demeter accepts the offer to nurse and raise the Queen's son, Demophoon, and promises to protect him. However, still unaware that Doso is the goddess, Demeter, Metaneira is distraught when she finds out how Doso holds the baby (above or in) fire every night]
And the child grew like some immortal being, not fed with food nor nourished at the breast: for by day rich-crowned Demeter would anoint him with ambrosia as if he were the offspring of a god and breathe sweetly upon him as she held him in her bosom.
But at night she would hide him like a brand in the heart of the fi re, unknown to his dear parents. And it wrought great wonder in these that he grew beyond his age; for he was like the gods face to face.
And she would have made him deathless and unageing, had not well-girded Metaneira in her heedlessness kept watch by night from her sweet-smelling chamber and spied.
But she wailed and smote her two hips, because she feared for her son and was greatly distraught in her heart; so she lamented and uttered winged words: “Demophoon, my son, the strange woman buries you deep in fire and works grief and bitter sorrow for me.”
[Demeter literally drops/throws the baby (he's fine) and yells at Metaneira, the forces the town to become the site of the annual Eleusinian Mysteries which were performed in worship of Demeter and Persephone]
“Witless are you mortals and dull to foresee your lot, whether of good or evil, that comes upon you. For now in your heedlessness you have wrought folly past healing; for – be witness the oath of the gods, the relentless water of Styx – I would have made your dear son deathless and unaging all his days and would have bestowed on him everlasting honor, but now he can in no way escape death and the fates.
Yet shall unfailing honor always rest upon him, because he lay upon my knees and slept in my arms.
But, as the years move round and when he is in his prime, the sons of the Eleusinians shall ever wage war and dread strife with one another continually. Lo! I am that Demeter who has share of honor and is the greatest help and cause of joy to the undying gods and mortal men.
But now, let all the people build me a great temple and an altar below it and beneath the city and its sheer wall upon a rising hillock above Callichorus. And I myself will teach my rites, that hereafter you may reverently perform them and so win the favour of my heart.”
[Demeter throws off her disguise and leaves]
When she had so said, the goddess changed her stature and her looks, thrusting old age away from her: beauty spread round about her and a lovely fragrance was wafted from her sweet-smelling robes, and from the divine body of the goddess a light shone afar, while golden tresses spread down over her shoulders, so that the strong house was filled with brightness as with lightning. And so she went out from the palace.
Demeter is a MILF, a hottie, stop portraying her otherwise
[The temple is built but it doesn't cure Demeter of her sorrow and her depression causes a year without crops of harvest]
But golden-haired Demeter sat there apart from all the blessed gods and stayed, wasting with yearning for her deep-bosomed daughter.
(...)
So she would have destroyed the whole race of man with cruel famine and have robbed them who dwell on Olympos of their glorious right of gifts and sacrifices, had not Zeus perceived and marked this in his heart.
First he sent golden-winged Iris to call rich-haired Demeter, lovely in form. So he commanded. And she obeyed the dark-clouded Son of Cronos, and sped with swift feet across the space between.
She came to the stronghold of fragrant Eleusis, and there finding dark-cloaked Demeter in her temple, spake to her and uttered winged words: “Demeter, father Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, calls you to come join the tribes of the eternal gods: come therefore, and let not the message I bring from Zeus pass unobeyed.” Thus said Iris imploring her.
But Demeter’s heart was not moved.
Then again the father sent forth all the blessed and eternal gods besides: and they came, one after the other, and kept calling her and offering many very beautiful gifts and whatever rights she might be pleased to choose among the deathless gods.
Yet no one was able to persuade her mind and will, so wroth was she in her heart; but she stubbornly rejected all their words: for she vowed that she would never set foot on fragrant Olympos nor let fruit spring out of the ground, until she beheld with her eyes her own fair-faced daughter.
[Zeus sends Hermes to persuade Hades to let Persephone out to see her mother so Demeter will calm down, Hades basically has no choice and agrees but...]
And [Hermes] found the lord Hades in his house seated upon a couch, and his shy mate with him, much reluctant, because she yearned for her mother. But she was afar off, brooding on her fell design because of the deeds of the blessed gods.
And Aidoneus, ruler over the dead, smiled grimly and obeyed the behest of Zeus the king. For he straightway urged wise Persephone, saying: “Go now, Persephone, to your dark-robed mother, go, and feel kindly in your heart towards me: be not so exceedingly cast down; for I shall be no unfitting husband for you among the deathless gods, that am own brother to father Zeus. And while you are here, you shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who defraud you and do not appease your power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished for evermore.”
When he said this, wise Persephone was filled with joy and hastily sprang up for gladness. But he on his part secretly gave her sweet pomegranate seed to eat, taking care for himself that she might not remain continually with grave, dark-robed Demeter.
[Hermes and Persephone go to Demeter]
And when Demeter saw them, she rushed forth as does a Maenad down some thick-wooded mountain, while Persephone on the other side, when she saw her mother’s sweet eyes, left the chariot and horses, and leaped down to run to her, and falling upon her neck, embraced her.
But while Demeter was still holding her dear child in her arms, her heart suddenly misgave her for some snare, so that she feared greatly and ceased fondling her daughter and asked of her at once: “My child, tell me, surely you have not tasted any food while you were below? Speak out and hide nothing, but let us both know.
For if you have not, you shall come back from loathly Hades and live with me and your father, the dark-clouded Son of Cronos and be honored by all the deathless gods; but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods.
But when the earth shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men. And now tell me how he rapt you away to the realm of darkness and gloom, and by what trick did the strong Host of Many beguile you?”
Persephone then tells her mother "(...) he secretly put in my mouth sweet food, a pomegranate seed, and forced me to taste against my will." and recounts her kidnapping "(...) in his golden chariot he bore me away, all unwilling, beneath the earth: then I cried with a shrill cry. All this is true, sore though it grieves me to tell the tale.”
Still they're happy to be reunited
So did they then, with hearts at one, greatly cheer each the other’s soul and spirit with many an embrace: their hearts had relief from their griefs while each took and gave back joyousness.
[Zeus calls on Demeter and promises her, Persephone will stay with her for 2/3rds of the year and in Hades 1/3rd. Rhea, their mother also comforts Demeter and urges her to accept the peace offering and she does. She then goes to teach certain Kings and cities the Mysteries.]
The End.
anyways >>>>>>> over the same old child bride mary sue Persephone falling in love with old emo Hades who empowers her.
Like all myths there are other versions, I'm sure, but the version of Persephone said to be a frightening Queen of the Underworld actually predate Hades so how about adapting and writing that instead of some creep edge lord and his child bride flower crown princess
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