Helene P. Foley is Olin Professor of Classics at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is author of Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, coauthor of Women in the
Classical World: Image and Text, and editor of Reflections of Women in Antiquity.

THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER

TRANSLATION, COMMENTARY, AND INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS

By Helene P. Foley

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1994 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-01479-1

Contents

List of Illustrations………………………………………………ixPreface and Acknowledgments…………………………………………xiPART 1. THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION, COMMENTARY, AND BACKGROUND……………1PART 2. INTERPRETIVE ESSAY ON THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER………………77PART 3. FURTHER INTERPRETATION: CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES…………………..179Bibliography………………………………………………………266Bibliographical Addendum……………………………………………281Index Locorum……………………………………………………..283General Index……………………………………………………..289

CHAPTER 1

COMMENTARY ON THE HOMERIC

HYMN TO DEMETER

Helene P. Foley

The homeric hymns were songs composed to honor andpraise deities and apparently served as preludes (prooimia) to therecitation of other epic poetry. Although we know nothingcertain about their audience and the circumstances of their performance,they were probably composed for recitation at feasts, at poetic contests, andat seasonally recurring festivals (the last two would often occur in combination).In a tradition where oral recitation is the primary mode of poeticcommunication, the context of performance (here uncertain) is probablythe determining feature of a poetic “genre”. Yet the Homeric hymns are abody of poems with some shared characteristics. (The Hymn to Demeterincludes all the features described below unless otherwise noted.) To thedegree that they represent a genre from a formal perspective, the hymnsdescribe the acquisition of distinctive powers and honors (including majorcults and sanctuaries) by gods or goddesses. They tend to begin and closewith an address to the deity or deities celebrated and a description of or anallusion to their special prerogatives, haunts, and activities. Both the openingsand closings of the poems mark characteristics of the deity with traditionalepithets. The closing often brings events up to the present time andincludes a farewell and the promise of another song.

The hymns are sung prayers: the elements mentioned above secure theattention and favor of the divinity to the singer and his community. Thepoet’s closing plea to the god generally follows a statement of credentialsthat justifies the god’s granting of the present request on the basis of pastfavors (sacrifices and gifts to the god or prayers previously answered by thegod) or the god’s special powers (e.g., the growth of grain is your specialty,and therefore you should grant this prayer). A hymn may include an accountof the god’s birth (absent in the Hymn to Demeter), a conflict orchallenge faced by the deity, his or her acquisition of honors, a divineepiphany, an ascent to and/or scene on Olympus. The longer hymns like theHymn to Demeter all include a substantial mythological narrative—a sacrednarrative reflecting on the origin of things—that also contains recurringmotifs. As Jenny Clay has pointed out, these hymns deal with the events thatoccur after Zeus has consolidated his reign over the universe, but before theworld familiar to humankind has taken shape. The audience hears aboutevents that fulfill what it wants fulfilled. In the Hymn to Demeter, Rheiafinally persuades Demeter to make the crops grow after Persephone’s return(469), and Demeter establishes the Mysteries (473–82).

The Hymn, composed in dactylic hexameter verse (the same meter that isused in the Homeric epics), follows the tradition of oral epic in its diction,style, and narrative technique. Hence its style is repetitive, if not as repetitive(for example, in the exact repetition of speeches) as Homer. Individual linesare composed in large part by combining in a creative fashion traditionalword and phrase patterns (or sometimes whole lines are repeated verbatim),which the poet has learned from the repertory of the oral tradition. Many ofits scenes also adapt a predictable narrative pattern (the elements in thesetype-scenes are noted later in this commentary). I have tried to preserve inmy translation much of the repetition of epithets (adjectives) used to describethe major characters (e.g., “fair-tressed Demeter,” “Zeus heavy-thunderingand mighty-voiced”) as well as other important repeated words,lines, and phrases, but eliminated some of the connectives, which are awkwardin English style. I have also tried to capture some of the Greek wordorder wherever it is possible and effective to do so in English. The Appendixto the interpretive essay discusses other features of the Hymn that place itwithin the tradition of Panhellenic poetry (poetry such as the Homeric epicsor Hesiod’s Theogony that was composed for audiences in any Greek city-state,rather than for a local audience in one community).

The author or authors of the poem are unknown, but scholars argue for adate between 650–550 B.C.E. on stylistic and historical grounds. I havebeen careful not to make assumptions in my interpretation about the authorshipof the poem—in any case, the poet (or poets) who composed thistext are working in a tradition where individual contributions are impossibleto distinguish. Richard Janko has argued that its language assimilatesthe Hymn more closely to the Boeotian tradition of Hesiod, and that itsdialectical idiosyncracies are most easily explained by an Attic origin. Heprefers a late-seventh-or early-sixth-century date. If the temple of Demeterto which the Hymn refers is the early-sixth-century building constructed atthe time of the Attic statesman Solon, a date on the later side might bepreferable. The section on “Athens and Eleusis” in the Appendix to theinterpretive essay discusses the controversial issue of the poem’s relation tothe historical context in which it was probably composed.

This commentary refers frequently both to the Eleusinian Mysteries thatare founded by the goddess Demeter at the conclusion of the poem and toother Greco-Roman versions of the Demeter/Persephone myth. The separatesection on the Mysteries gives what information we have about theserites, the final phases of which have remained largely a well-kept secret.These Mysteries, the most important of the mystery cults of antiquity,eventually attracted initiates from the entire Greco-Roman world; in theclassical period (480–323 B.C.E.—we are uncertain about who could participateat the time the Hymn was composed) most Athenians (includingwomen and slaves) and many other Greeks were initiated into them. Theypromised initiates happiness in this life and a different lot in the afterlife. Alist of other important Greco-Roman versions of the myth is given here.

Hesiod, Theogony 913–14

Pamphos, Hymn to Demeter (Pausanias 1.38.3,8.37.9,9.31.9. See also 1.39.1)

Orphic fragments (esp. 49–52 Kern)

Orphic Argonautika 1191–96

Orphic hymns 18, 29, 41, 43

Euripides, Helen 1301–68

Isokrates, Panegyrikos 28–29

Kallimachos, Hymn 6

Nikander, Theriaka 483–87 (with scholia) and Alexipharmaka 129–32

Philikos, choriambic Hymn to Demeter (Page GLP 90)

Hellenistic Hymn to Demeter (Page GLP 91)

Apollodoros, Library (Bibliotheca) 1.5.1–3

Hyginus, Fabulae 146, 147

Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca historica 5.3–5 (see also 5.68–69.1–3)

Cicero, Against Verves 2.4. 106–8

Vergil, Georgics 1.39 (with the commentary by Servius)

Lucan, Civil Wars 6.698–700 and 739–42

Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.385–661 and Fasti 4.417–620

Lactantius Placidus on Statius Thebaid 5.347

Claudian, On the Rape of Proserpina (De raptu Proserpinae)

Nonnos, Dionysiaka 6.1–168

Second Vatican Mythographer 94–100

The text of the Hymn to Demeter derives from a single mutilated manuscriptof the early fifteenth century C. E., discovered in a stable in Moscow in1777, supplemented by papyrus fragments. The Greek text is that of N . J.Richardson 1974, with the exception of conjectures added at lines 398–404(see further ad loc). I have used brackets [] in the translation where thetext is so damaged that reliable conjecture is impossible.

1–14 The opening is typical of the hymn form, which invokes the deity tobe celebrated. As is often the case in the hymns, the first word of the poemgives its subject, Demeter. Using a framing device standard in early Greekpoetry, ring composition, the poem begins and ends with Demeter (492)and her daughter. Also typical of Homeric poetry is the use of compoundadjectives or epithets in the opening lines to characterize the subject(s) ofthe poem. The term semnê (1), “awesome” or “sacred,” which occurs here inepic for the first time, is also especially characteristic of these two goddesses.

The first eleven lines of the poem form one extended sentence, whichemphasizes the shock that the violent abduction produces in the innocentand unnamed daughter and her mother, Demeter; the devious plans ofZeus; and the wondrous effect of the narcissus. The structure of the sentencelinks and then separates the divine mother and daughter. Such elaborateopenings also occur at the beginning of the two Homeric epics. Stylistically,the surprise and brutality of the event is expressed by the delay of theword hêrpaksen, “seized,” until line 3, by the emphatic positioning of theword at the beginning of this line, and by its juxtaposition with dôken,”gave” (in my translation I have had to delay the word until the end of theline). Although marriage by abduction had a place in Greek tradition andmarriages may often have taken place without the consent of the bride andher mother, it could be argued that the word order in line 3 creates a sharpcontrast between Zeus’s giving of Persephone, as in a marriage, and Hades’violent act. The word nosphin at the opening of line 4 can imply both that theabduction took place without the knowledge and consent of Demeter andthat Persephone was at a physical distance from her mother when it occurred.It is difficult to find an appropriate English word to translate Hades’act of violent abduction. (See Fig. 1). In modern usage the word rapeemphasizes sexual consummation, which is uncertain in this case. On line 3,for example, I have translated the verb (hêrpaksen) as “seized” and at line 19(harpaksas) as “snatched”; later Demeter uses for Persephone’s experience aword with even stronger connotations of overpowering force, which Itranslated as “suffering violence” (biazomenês, 68).

Zeus’s authorizing of the abduction occurs first in Hesiod (Theogony913–14) and is often emphasized in later versions influenced by the Hymn.The language in both versions suggests that Hesiod and the Hymn follow asimilar tradition. By contrast, in Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae, Jupiter(the Roman Zeus) bows to the demands of fate and Pluto (Hades). InOvid’s Metamorphoses Venus (Aphrodite) sets the story in motion by havingCupid (Eros) shoot a love dart into Pluto. A concerned patriarch, Ovid’sJupiter responds at once to Ceres’ (Demeter’s) appeal, although he sees theadvantage of the match. The section on “Marriage” in the interpretive essaydiscusses in detail the Hymn‘s treatment of Hades’ abduction/marriage andZeus’s role in it.

Zeus’s giving of Persephone in Demeter’s absence and without her consentinaugurates a series of displacements in the poem, in which gods shiftinto spheres where they were not present before, or stand apart from eachother (This is emphasized by the repetition of Greek words meaning “apartfrom”; see nosphin at 4, 27, 72, 114, and 303 and apaneuthe, 355; see also 92and 158). Demeter’s withdrawal first from Olympus and then into hertemple during her famine structurally parallels her daughter’s removal intothe world below. The fact that mother and daughter are separated at thetime of the abduction suggests that Persephone is moving toward maturityand independence from her mother. Again in contrast to some later versionsbut in keeping with Homeric conventions, Zeus remains remote throughoutthe poem. Here (27–29) he sits apart in his temple on earth, receivingsacrifices from mortals—the very gifts of which Demeter will later deprivehim with her famine. It may be significant that Zeus also played at best amarginal role in the Eleusinian Mysteries themselves.

2 Aidoneus is another name for Hades, the god of many names and “Host-to-Many”(9).

3 The epithet for Zeus I translate as “mighty-voiced” may also mean “farseeing.”

4 Demeter is not generally associated with a golden sword (or sickle?); themeaning and cult association of this epithet is obscure. The chief deities ofcities often served as protectors of that city, and the sword may signify such arole for Demeter.

5–14 The Okeanidai, or daughters of Okeanos, are water deities (as isKorê in some contexts) who, like all nymphs, protect and nourish the youngas kourotrophoi. In other versions of the myth, and in Persephone’s laterversion of the story in this poem (417–24), the powerful virgin goddessesPallas (Athena) and Artemis are also present at the abduction (see alsoOrphic fragment 49.40ff.; Euripides’ Helen 1314ff., where Aphrodite isalso present; the Epidaurian Hymn; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca 5.3.4;Hyginus 146; Claudian, etc. The vase in Fig. 1 follows this version). Inthese later versions, they often try but (bowing to Zeus’s intervention with athunderbolt) fail to protect Persephone from being abducted. Given ourknowledge of later tradition, the absence at this point in the poem of thepowerful eternal virgins Athena and Artemis, goddessses who reject marriagefor themselves, could (unless 417–24 are interpolated) be significantin several respects. First, by leaving Persephone without potential defenders,the text highlights her helplessness. (On the failure of the Okeanidai toserve even as witnesses to the abduction, see further on line 17 below.)Second, later versions of the myth use the goddesses5 presence to suggestthat Persephone was on the verge of joining Artemis and Athena in permanentvirginity (Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca 5.3.4, Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.375–77), whereas the Hymn hints at her readiness for marriage. In Ovid5sMetamorphoses the nymph Cyane tries to block Proserpina’s abduction asillegitimate (5.411–20). Pluto is acting without Ceres’ knowledge, she argues;he should woo Proserpina, not abduct her. When Hades later resortsto using persuasion to make the unwilling Persephone content with beinghis wife, the Hymn makes a similar point.

Girls in myth are traditionally carried off, often from a chorus of maidens,while gathering flowers in a meadow (or by water). Flower-gathering festivalsin which girls (often girls on the verge of marriage) participated occurredthroughout Greece. Europa and Oreithyia are among the mythicalvirgins abducted while picking flowers. Nausikäa and her maidens face apotential male threat of this kind when Odysseus emerges from the busheson the beach at Scheria (Odyssey 6. 135ff.). Meadows in Greek myth areliminal sites, associated not only with a transition to sexuality and fertilitybut with the underworld and with Elysion and the Isles of the Blest. Themotif of abduction from a meadow and a group of maidens suggests thegirl’s readiness for marriage. Here Persephone is described as fertile orblooming (thalerên, 79) and accompanied by mature companions (thedeep-breasted Okeanidai). In Claudian’s version of the story, Persephonehas already had several suitors (1.133–37; see also Nonnos Dionysiaka 6.1–7).Persephone’s flowerlike face (line 8) links her with the plants she picks.Through her identification with plants and the growth of plants in a seasonalcycle, Persephone is also, mythically speaking, an appropriate spouse foran underworld god, for the seed with which she is identified in later mythand cult disappears and reappears from beneath the ground.

Of the flowers picked by Persephone, roses are associated with eros, andthe narcissus, like many other flowers that grow from bulbs and producefruits, was thought to be an aphrodisiac. Most of these flowers are knownat least at a later date to have developed underworld associations. Thehyacinth, the narcissus, the violet, and the crocus (as well as the pomegranate)are all associated in later myth with young heroes (Hyakinthos,Narkissos, Attis, and Krokos) who fell victim to untimely death at an earlierage. The narcissus seems to have been associated with the Great Goddesses,Demeter and Persephone (Sophocles Oedipous at Kolonos 683), and sacred tothe underworld deities, the Eumenides. The flower was thought to havesoporific qualities (the root nark– in narkissos suggests torpor and death). Ithas been suggested that the picking of flowers (often by women and in aritual context), especially flowers that grow from bulbs, should be associatedwith gathering and pre-cereal cultures; if so, the choice of flowers derivesfrom an alternative version of the myth in which the abduction takes placebefore humans have agriculture (here it is already established). Not all ofthese flowers are spring flowers, and hence the moment at which Persephoneis abducted cannot be definitely linked with spring. The poem’svagueness about the season at which the abduction occurred perhaps suggestsa world in which the cycle of seasons is not yet fully established.

The gathering of flowers may have played a part in the rites at Eleusis,although garlands were banned as hateful to the goddesses at Demeter’sfestival at the Thesmophoria.
(Continues…)Excerpted from THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER by Helene P. Foley. Copyright © 1994 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.