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Updated: May 1, 2025
It is not difficult to discover the meaning of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. It is the soul which lives alternately above and below. The immortality of the soul and its perpetually recurring transformation by birth and death are thus symbolised. The soul originates from the immortal Demeter. But it is led astray by the transitory, and even prevailed upon to share its destiny.
Of fair-tressed Demeter the holy Goddess I begin to sing; of her and the Maiden, the lovely Persephone. Hail Goddess, and save this city and inspire my song.
The Double Personification of the Corn as Mother and Daughter COMPARED with the Corn-mother of Germany and the Harvest-maiden of Scotland, the Demeter and Persephone of Greece are late products of religious growth.
Persephone, when she saw her mother's dear eyes, sprang out of the chariot and fell upon her neck and embraced her. Long and long Demeter held her dear child in her arms, gazing, gazing upon her. Suddenly her mind misgave her. With a great fear at her heart she cried out: "Dearest, has any food passed your lips in all the time you have been in the Underworld?"
Now when they had done their work, and rested from their labours, each man started for his home, but yellow-haired Demeter, sitting there apart from all the blessed Gods, abode, wasting away with desire for her deep- bosomed daughter.
Whether when thou broughtest forth to the light Dionysos of the flowing hair, who sitteth beside Demeter to whom the cymbals clang? or when at midnight in a snow of gold thou didst receive the mightiest of the gods, what time he stood at Amphitryon's doors and beguiled his wife, to the begetting of Herakles?
A vaguer indication of totemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues of Greek gods, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in the various animals and plants which were sacred to each god and represented as his companions. The hints of totemism among the ancient Irish are interesting. Races named after animals were common in ancient Ireland.
There first did she land from the unharvested ether, and gladly the Goddesses looked on each other, and rejoiced in heart, and thus first did Rhea of the fair wimple speak to Demeter: "Hither, child; for he calleth thee, far-seeing Zeus, the lord of the deep thunder, to come among the Gods, and has promised thee such honours as thou wilt, and hath decreed that thy child, for the third of the rolling year, shall dwell beneath the murky gloom, but the other two parts with her mother and the rest of the Immortals.
The lesser Mysteries took place in February, the greater in September. Initiations were connected with the festivals. The symbolical presentation of the cosmic and human drama formed the final act of the initiations of the Mystics, which took place here. The Eleusinian temples had been erected in honour of the goddess Demeter. She was a daughter of Kronos.
After the Egyptian, in reply to the artist's inquiry concerning what other works of art and implements he had seen in the studio, had answered that nothing else could be distinguished on account of the smoke, he congratulated the sculptor on his last work. People were already making a great stir about the new Demeter.
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