In a famous passage in Iliad 14, Zeus recounted to Hera herself some of his sexual exploits, and he named Demeter in his long list of amours. Zeus, the sky god, had sexual relations with two of his sisters - Hera, who was a kind of long-suffering queen of heaven and Demeter, who was more earth-focused. Her siblings were Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades on the male side, and Hera and Hestia on the female side. without Demeter’s knowledge) given over his daughter Persephone to a marriage with his brother Hades.ĭemeter was one of the “older” generation of Olympian gods. The hymn describes the primordial maternal power brought to bear upon the male sky-god Zeus, who had secretly (i.e. The ancient Greek word for “mother” (meter) is actually embedded in Demeter’s name. It is a remarkable narrative, built fundamentally on the power of a mother’s love for her only child.ĭemeter mourning Persephone. The focus of the poem is one of the most renowned narratives from Greek mythology - the rape of Persephone by Hades, the god of the underworld, and the response of Demeter to her loss. Despite its connections to epic poetry, however, and the title “Homeric”, the hymn is of uncertain authorship. It is 495 lines long and composed in hexameters, the same poetic meter as the Iliad and Odyssey. It probably dates to the first half of the 6th century BC. There is, however, a rather beautiful poem called the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in which Demeter and her daughter Persephone are the central focus of attention. Nor was she featured at all as a character in extant Greek drama. She was mentioned a little bit in Homeric epic, especially the Iliad, but had no actual part to play either in the Iliad or the Odyssey. As an Olympian goddess and fertility figure, she was very important in ancient Greek religion and life, but she had a rather small role in its literature and mythology. The goddess Demeter is an interesting case of this. The student of Greek mythology is often struck by the fact that some gods and goddesses have extensive roles in the mythical narratives, and others have very limited parts to play.

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