DEMETER (CERES)
This story is told only in a very early poem, one of the earliest of the Homeric Hymns, dating from the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century.
Demeter/Ceres had an only daughter, Persephone (in Latin Proserpina), the maiden of the spring. She lost her and in her terrible grief she withheld her gifts from the earth, which turned into a frozen desert. The green and flowering land was icebound and lifeless because Persephone had disappeared.
The lord of the dark underworld, the king of the dead, carried Proserpina off when, she strayed too far from her companions. In his chariot drawn by coal-black steeds he rose up through a chasm in the earth, and grasping the maiden by the wrist set her beside him. He bore her away weeping, down to the underworld.
The high hills echoed her cry and the depths of the sea, and her mother heard it. She sped like a bird over sea and land seeking her daughter. No one would tell her the truth, "no man nor god, nor any sure messenger from the birds." Nine days Demeter/Ceres wandered. At last she came to the Sun and he told her all the story: Persephone/Proserpina was down in the world beneath the earth, among the shadowy dead. Then a still greater grief entered Demeter's heart. She left Olympus; she dwelt on earth… alone, wasting away with longing for her daughter.
That year was most dreadful and cruel for mankind over all the earth. Nothing grew; no
seed sprang up; in vain the oxen drew the plowshare through the furrows. It seemed the
whole race of men would die of famine. At last Zeus saw that he must take the matter in hand. He sent the gods to Demeter/Ceres, one after another, to try to turn her from her anger, but she listened to none of them. Never would she let the earth bear fruit until she had seen her daughter. Then Zeus/Jupiter realized that his brother must give way. He told Hermes/Mercury to go down to the underworld and to bid Pluto/Hades to let his bride go back to Demeter.
Hermes found the two sitting side by side, Persephone/Prosperpina shrinking away, reluctant because she longed for her mother. At Hermes'/Mercury’s words she sprang up joyfully, eager to go. Her
husband knew that he must obey the word of Zeus/Jupiter and send her up to earth away from
him, but he prayed her as left him to have kind thoughts of him and not be so sorrowful that
she was the wife of one who was great among the Immortals. And he made her eat a
pomegranate seed, knowing in his heart that if she did so she must return to him.
He got ready his golden car and Hermes/Mercury took the reins and drove the black horses straight to the temple where Demeter/Ceres was. She ran out to meet her. Persephone sprang into her arms and was held fast there. All day they talked of what had happened to them both, and Demeter grieved when she heard of the pomegranate seed, fearing that she could not keep her daughter with her.
Then Zeus/Jupiter sent another messenger to her, none other than his revered mother Rhea, the oldest of the gods. Swiftly she hastened down from the heights of Olympus to the barren, leafless earth, and standing at the door of the temple she spoke to Demeter.
Come, my daughter, for Zeus, far-seeing, loud-thundering, bids you.
Come once again to the halls of the gods where you shall have honor,
Where you will have your desire, your daughter, to comfort your sorrow
As each year is accomplished and bitter winter is ended.
For a third part only the kingdom of darkness shall hold her.
For the rest you will keep her, you and the happy Immortals.
Peace now. Give men life which comes alone from your giving.
Demeter did not refuse, poor comfort though it was that she must lose Persephone/Proserpina for four months every year and see her young loveliness go down to the world of the dead. But she was kind; the "Good Goddess," men always called her. She was sorry for the desolation she had brought about. She made the fields once more rich with abundant fruit and the whole world bright with flowers and green leaves
In. the stories of both goddesses, Demeter/Ceres and Persephone/Prosperpina, the Idea of sorrow was foremost. Demeter/Ceres, goddess of the harvest wealth, was still more the divine sorrowing mother who saw her daughter die each year. Persephone was the radiant maiden of the spring and the summertime.
But all the while Persephone/Proserpina knew how brief that beauty was; fruits, flowers, leaves, all the fair growth of earth, must end with the coming of the cold and pass like herself into the power of death. After the lord of the dark world below carried her away she was never again the gay young creature who had played in the flowery meadow without a thought of care or trouble. She did indeed rise from the dead every spring, but she brought with her the memory of where she had come from; with all her bright beauty there was something strange and awesome about her. She was often said to be "the maiden whose name may not be spoken."
The Olympians were "the happy gods," "the deathless gods, far removed from suffering
mortals destined to die. But in their grief and at the hour of death men could turn for
compassion to the goddess who sorrowed and the goddess who died.
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