HYMN TO DEMETER

Subject.Persephone, while gathering flowers on the Nysian plain, is carried off by Hades, with the connivance of Zeus. Her cry reaches the ears of Hecate and Helios; Demeter, too, hears her voice, but does not see the rape, or know the name of the ravisher. Distracted with grief, the mother wanders for days seeking news of her daughter. She meets Hecate, who does not know that Hades has done the deed; but the two goddesses go together in quest of Helios, from whom they learn the truth. Then Demeter, angry with Zeus, leaves Olympus and visits the earth in the guise of an old woman. Reaching Eleusis, she meets the daughters of King Celeus, and is engaged to nurse their brother Demophon. She would make the child immortal, but is thwarted by the curiosity of his mother Metanira. She reveals herself to the Eleusinians, commands them to build her a temple, and departs from Eleusis. But she is still wrathful with the gods, and causes a great dearth, so that mankind is in danger of perishing from famine. So Zeus sends Hermes to bring back Persephone from the underworld. Hades, however, has given the maiden a pomegranate seed to eat, which binds her to him; and Demeter, after a joyful meeting with her daughter, tells her that she must now stay with Hades for a third part of every year. The wrath of Demeter is now appeased; she makes the fruits of the earth to grow again, and instructs the chiefs of Eleusis in the performance of her rites, the knowledge of which is necessary for the happiness of men in the nether world.

The Rape and Return of Persephone is a favourite theme in classical poetry. The version of Pamphos is several times mentioned by Pausanias (see on 8, 99, 101); it seems to have been essentially similar to the Homeric hymn, though differing in details, perhaps owing to Athenian influence. Pindar devoted an ode to the subject (Paus.ix. 23. 2), and Euripides tells the story in a choral song ( Hel.1301-1368). There are references to it in Alexandrian literature (Callim. h. Dem. vi., Nicand. Ther. 483-487), and in Nonnus (Dion. vi. 1-168) and the Orphic Argonautica (1197-1201). It was especially popular with the Roman poets: Ovid has two accounts in full ( Fast.iv. 419-616, Met. 385-661); Statius alludes to the myth (Achill. ii. 149-151), and Claudian composed a whole epic de raptu Proserpinae.³⁰

The distinctive features of various ancient poems concerned with Demeter generally, and the rape of Persephone in particular, have been analysed by Pater in his Greek Studies. He pays a warm tribute to the merits of the hymn to Demeter, noting especially its pathetic expression and descriptive beauty. Many readers of the hymn will agree with Prof. Mahaffy (Greek Class. Lit. i. p. 151) in calling it far the noblest of the collection. Foreign critics, as a rule, are less favourable; some of the German commentators, and recently Puntoni, among the Italians, have been so much occupied in dissecting the hymn into parts that they appear to have had no time to appreciate its excellence as a whole.³¹

Relation of the hymn to the Mysteries.Great as is the poetical value of the hymn, perhaps its chief interest lies in the fact that it is the most ancient and the most complete document bearing on the Eleusinian mysteries. There is nothing esoteric or official in its tone; the writer was not a priest, but a poet, whose primary object was to describe, in fitting language, the pathetic and beautiful story of Demeter and Persephone. But he was an orthodox believer, who had undoubtedly been initiated; and he was at pains to prove that the rites observed at Eleusis were derived from the actual experiences of the divine founders of the mysteries. We can thus reconstruct from his narrative a picture, more or less complete, of the early Eleusinian ritual at a period anterior to the intrusion of Bacchic and Orphic elements. Thanks to the work of Mannhardt and Frazer, much light has now been thrown on the primitive meaning of this rituala meaning which had become obscured, if not altogether lost, by the time of the hymn itself.

It seems probable that the early Eleusinian ceremonies were purely agrarian³² : the corn was worshipped under two formsthe ripe ear or Corn-Mother (Deo, Demeter), and the new blade or Corn-Maiden (Core).³³ When the time of sowing was past and the Maiden was underground, it was thought necessary to propitiate the Mother, or rather, perhaps, to influence her by sympathetic magic, in order to secure the reappearance of the Maiden. Hence the Eleusinians prepared themselves by various acts of ritual to hold communion with the Corn-goddess. During the period of preparation (κάθαρσις), the adults fasted (cf. 49), and perhaps abstained from bathing (50). To prevent a failure of the crops, complete purification was required, for their fields, their children, and themselves. They cleansed and fertilised the land by running over it with lighted torches (48). So also they purified their children by making them pass over the fire (239). The women, who in the earliest times seem to have been mainly, if not exclusively, concerned with these rites, held a παννυχίς or holy vigil (292). In order, probably, to unite themselves more closely with the goddess, her worshippers pelted one another with stones, until the blood flowed, an offering acceptable to Demeter, as to the gods of many peoples (265). Finally they broke their fast by partaking sacramentally of the body of the Corn-goddess, in the form of a κυκεών, or mixture of wheat and water (208).

The development of this primitive Eleusinian religion is a matter of speculation. The simple agrarian ritual may have remained unaltered for centuries; but it is plain that the ideas underlying the ceremonies must have been greatly changed before the age of the hymn. As has been already remarked, an elaborate myth had obscured the meaning of the ceremonies which it purported to explain. The mimetic ritual (to secure the renewal of the crops) had come to be thought a commemoration of the story of Persephone, whose loss and recovery was represented by a sacred play.³⁴ The old agricultural magic had been transformed into a Mystery, and the Maiden had become a great goddess of the underworld, with power to reward or punish mankind after death (see 480-482).

Date of the hymn.These ideas of future happiness for the souls of the initiated are, of course, quite foreign to Homeric eschatology, and furnish a terminus a quo for the date of the hymn. And there are landmarks in the later history of the Eleusinian cult which supply us with a terminus ante quem. The hymn makes no mention of Iacchus, who played so important a part in the ritual of Eleusis, as known to us from the Frogsof Aristophanes.³⁵ It is true that arguments ex silentio are dangerous, and we cannot be sure that Iacchus was altogether absent from the mysteries when the hymn was composed. There may have been a δαίμων, perhaps also known as Plutus (489), connected with the great goddesses from very early times (Lenormant p. 856; Dyer p. 174).³⁶ But we may safely conclude that Iacchus, who was either the brother of Persephone, or her son by Hades, was of little importance until a period subsequent to the age of the hymn (Gardner p. 385, after Lenormant). It follows that the hymn certainly preceded the introduction of Dionysiac rites at Eleusis, when Iacchus was identified with Dionysus (Bacchus). The procession of Iacchus from Athens to Eleusis was established by the time of the Persian war ( Herod. viii. 65); Lenormant is therefore probably correct in assigning the commencement of Dionysiac influence to the first half of the sixth century B.C. The insignificance of Triptolemus and Eumolpus, who are merely two of the Eleusinian chiefs, is also a sign of antiquity (see 153). On these grounds the hymn appears to belong to a date at least not later than the beginning of that century; Lenormant himself (p. 852) assigns it to the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century. Most scholars are substantially in agreement with the view that the hymn is the work of the seventh century; e.g. Frster (p. 39), who suggests the first half, and Duncker (Griech. Gesch. iii. ch. 14), who favours the middle of the century. So Francke (de hymn. in Cer. compositione etc., 1881), following Voss (between Hesiod and Solon).

We may therefore reject the theory of a later date, held by Baumeister (the period of the Pisistratids) and Fick (B. B. xvi. p. 27), who places the hymn between 540 and 504 B.C.

Linguistic evidence is inconclusive, but does not negative the theory of a seventh-century date. Gemoll (p. 279) quotes a number of forms (e.g. ὄχοισιν, θυσίαισιν, κόρη) and words (e.g. ἀδικεῖν, τηρεῖν) which are not Homeric, and which seem to him to belong to later ³⁷ But we cannot arbitrarily fix a time for their first appearance; we can at most call them post-Homeric. For the evidence of the digamma see p. lxix f.

Place of composition.Many critics, since Voss, have attributed the hymn to an Attic writer. If the word Attic is taken to imply Athenian, there is little to be said for the view. The Athenians are nowhere mentioned (the emendation introducing the name in 268 is now abandoned), and there is no hint of the famous procession from Athens to Eleusis. The mysteries appear to be still purely parochial. This silence about any Athenian interest seems to refute the conjecture of Preller (adopted by Baumeister) that the hymn was composed for recitation at the Panathenaea. It is highly probable, in fact, as has often been suggested, that at the time of composition Eleusis was still independent of Athens. Unfortunately the date of the political fusion of Eleusis with Athens is uncertain, although it was undoubtedly not later that Solon,³⁸ and probably took place at least a generation earlier. If this argument is sound, we have also a confirmation from history to support the theory of considerable antiquity for the hymn.

Although the claim for an Athenian origin seems to fail, there is reason to believe that the hymn is Attic in the broadest sense of the word, i.e. Eleusinian (Grote Hist. Greece, part ii. ch. 10, Frster, p. 24). The author was clearly familiar with the mythology and topography of Eleusis, and must have been initiated into the mysteries. In no early Greek document, perhaps, is local colour so clearly marked. The Eleusinian origin of the hymn has nevertheless been denied by various scholars, whose arguments, however, are not very cogent.³⁹ The principal objection is perhaps the fact that, in the hymn, the descent of Persephone to the underworld takes place at Nysa, whereas local tradition laid the scene at Eleusis itself.⁴⁰ But this tradition is mentioned by no authors earlier than Phanodemus and Pausanias (see on 17), and we need not suppose that it was primitive. When the Athenians became interested in the mysteries, they localised the scene in Attica itself (Schol. on O. C. 1590; see Preller-Robert i.^{2} p. 759 n. 1); and this implies that there was no rigid and orthodox belief in a κατάβασις at Eleusis.

Influence of the hymn.Extant literature shews little or no trace of any imitation of the hymn. Callimachus may have known it, but there is practically no evidence to be extracted from his poem (see on 49 f.), and he differs from the Homeric version in some particulars (cf. on 200); see Gutsche op. cit. p. 28 f. Apollonius Rhodius may have adapted the episode of Demophon (237 f.) to his account of the childhood of Achilles; but there is nothing in the passage (4.869 f.) which may not be independent. Apollodorus, however, must have been acquainted with the hymn, as his own account of the myth (i. 5) is identical in its main outlines. He disagrees in some details: e.g. Demeter discovers the name of the ravisher from the men of Hermione, not from Helios; Demophon is consumed by the fire; the mission of Triptolemus is narrated. Apollodorus mentions Panyasis and Pherecydes as authorities for the genealogy of Triptolemus; he must therefore have collated their accounts, at least, with the Homeric hymn, and have adopted a composite version of the myth. Actual citations of the hymn appear in Philodemus (see on 440) and Pausanias, who mentions it in three places (i. 38. 2 f., ii. 14. 2, iv. 30. 3).

Diction.In language, the poem is more closely connected with the hymn to Aphrodite than with any other in the collection (see h. Aphr. Introd. p. 198). The writer was evidently a close student of Hesiod; Francke (p. 11 f.) collects a large number of words and forms in the hymn, which are wanting in Homer, but occur in Hesiod. A passage containing the names of Ocean nymphs is borrowed from the Theogony (see on 417).

Integrity of the hymn.There is no reason to suspect the presence of any interpolated passages; there is indeed no single line which may not have been original. The story moves in a simple and straightforward way from beginning to end, and all the episodes fall into their proper places. A summary of the various attempts to disintegrate the hymn (by Matthiae, Preller, Hermann, Wegener, and Bcheler) is given by Gemoll (p. 278), and need not be repeated here. The latest editor, Puntoni, while criticising the previous efforts of the higher critics, has added a theory, no less unconvincing, to the number. He believes that the hymn as it stands is a fusion of two distinct poems, one of which narrated the rape of Persephone without alluding to Eleusis and the mysteries, while the other treated the mourning of Demeter and the institution of the Eleusinian cult (p. 2, 111). Puntoni apportions the lines of the hymn between these two earlier poems and the additions of a later editor. The grounds for this elaborate and minute dissection are quite illusory; they consist mainly in the supposed unsatisfactory position held by Hecate, and in a number of grammatical and logical incongruities in the text. The most tangible of these are in 53 and 58. It appears unnecessary to refute Puntoni's long argument in detail; his method is inapplicable to early poetry, and perhaps to imaginative literature in any age; some of his objections betray a want of familiarity with epic usage, and even with Greek as a language.⁴¹ The conclusion of Baumeister and Gemoll, that the hymn is practically untouched and uncontaminated, is adopted in the present edition.

That no inference can be drawn from the plural ὕμνοι in the title (a misapprehension of Bcheler's, ed. p. 3) is plain from its appearance before the other hymns. It is to be read τοῦ αὐτοῦ ὕμνοι. εἰς τὴν δήμητραν.

*dh/mhtran is the form of the accusative in the title of h. xiii. in all MSS. except It J. is a variant in Theog. 454 and Paus.ii. 14. 3, and is required by the metre in an epigram quoted by Paus.i. 37. 2(Preger Inscr. gr. metr. 203. 2); so orac.ap. Euseb. P. E. v. 34 εἰς πάτρην φυγάδας κατάγων Δήμητραν ἀμήσεις.

qeo/n: θεάν (M) in one syllable is perhaps not impossible; θεῶν and θεᾶς are common in synizesi in Hesiod and Tragedy; Rzach Dialekt des H. 375. Smyth (Ionic 28) quotes synizesis in σάκεα, στήθεα, βέλεα etc. But the metre practically requires θεόν, and Voss's correction is confirmed by h. xiii.1, where M again has θεάν, while the other MSS. give θεόν.