Classical Mythology, 7th Edition - obinfonet: dia logou

326 THE MYTHS OF CREATION: THE GODS
and drastic variation of this eternal and universal archetype. The myth's sexual blatancy
is replaced by a more refined and purer concept of motherhood and the love
between a mother and daughter. In this guise, with nobility and humanity, the
mother-goddess and matriarchy sustained their dominance in the ancient world.
Details of the myth continually challenge the patriarchal power of Zeus. The
abduction of Persephone ordained by the supreme god so that Hades may have
a wife and the Underworld may have a queen is depicted not as a divine right
but a brutal rape, seen from the point of view of Demeter, who will not accept
the status quo and is mighty enough to modify it. Through compromise, both
the will of Zeus and the will of Demeter are fulfilled. Demeter shares the love
and the person of her daughter with Hades; Hades has his wife; and Persephone
attains honor as queen of the Underworld: the mystic cycle of death and rebirth
is explained by a myth accommodating a specific matriarchal religious ritual,
promising joy in this life and the next.
As we have seen, the Eleusinian mysteries were an inspiring spiritual force
and became the one universal mystery religion of the ancient world before Christianity.
Indeed, matriarchy was very much alive and well in the patriarchal world
of the Greeks and the Romans.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Foley, Helene P., ed. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and In
pretive Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. A wealth of material, with
contributions by several scholars, on all sorts of subjects related to the Hymn, e.g.,
religion, psychology, politics, variants of the myth, archetypal themes, female experience,
and manifold influences on literature and thought.
Jung, C. G., and Kerényi, C. Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Chi
and the Mysteries of Eleusis. New York: Princeton University Press, 1963. Jung provides
a psychological commentary for Kerényi's essays on the Divine Child and the
Kore (the maiden).
Kerényi, C. Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. New York: Schocken, 1977.
Mylonas, George E. Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1961.
Spaeth, Barbette Stanley. The Roman Goddess Ceres. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1995. This study of the Roman counterpart of Demeter challenges the interpretation
of goddesses as archetypes for feminist liberation.
Trager, Philip. Persephone. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1996; distributed
by University Press of New England, Hanover and London. An attractive little book
offering a concise synthesis of dance (the ballet by Limon), photography (by Trager),
and poetry (by Eavan Boland and Rita Dove).
NOTES
1. That is, "to initiate and observe the holy rite or sacrament." There appears to be a lacuna
after this sentence. The words translated "for the sake of the holy rite" are difficult,
and their precise meaning is disputed. The reference must be to an important