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xeny that also appears in Hymn 2 to Demeter (and is discussed
twice in the Odyssey, 7.199—206 and 17.483—487). 6
As already noted, the famous Hymn No. 7 mentions ivy. Alongside
a grapevine that bears bunches of grapes, ivy shoots, both
blooming and bearing the species' pretty fruits, miraculously entwine
the mast of the Etruscan pirate ship that has captured the
young god (38—40). Hymn No. 26, on the other hand, thematizes
his association with that plant. Its very first word, kissokÃmhn (1),
indicates that his hair is inseparable from the ivy that crowns his
head in many hundreds of vase-paintings. 7 The kissÿbia from
which the Cyclops drinks potent wine to his undoing and in which
Odysseus receives hospitable drink from his loyal swineherd Eumaeus
(14.78) are therefore doubly associated with the Wine-god,
both in the beverage they contain and in the “ivy" evidently involved
in the name of these rustic vessels, whether ivy leaves
crown them or (likelier) their material is the woody trunk or root of
an ancient ivy plant.
Ivy is Dionysian. On the other hand, besides sharing zoological
connections (the dolphin-fish in Hymns 3.399—439 and 7.51—53),
the Wine-god and Apollo are botanically associated. Hymn 26 to
Dionysus tells us that upon growing up he ranged through wooded
glens garlanded with ivy, expected, and unexpected laurel (7—8). 8
One further piece of information in the lesser Dionysian Hymns
does not add anything to our understanding. The fragmentary Hymn
1 to Dionysus gives the god an obscure and still unexplained epithet:
eÆraci3thj.
DEMETER (Hymns 2, long, and 13, very short; compare 14,
to “Mother of the Gods" and 30 to “Earth Mother of All")
The grand, lengthy Eleusinian Hymn No. 2 indicates unexpected
parallelisms in epithets that the Mother of Persephone and of
grain-crops shares with other entities. In line 4 she is called both
xrysÀoroj, “golden-sword", a title we associate much more readily
with Apollo and his sister Artemis, and ÈglaÃkarpoj, “showy-
-fruited", an epithet found also in Odyssey (7.115 and 11.589, there
describing mhlçai, “apple-trees"). Later in the Hymn the same term
is applied to those olive trees that we are somewhat surprised to
learn did not hear Persephone's cries for help as Uncle Hades abducted
her (line 23). 9 N. J. Richardson in detailed notes on ll. 22—3
and 23 allows that these may be tree-nymphs, 'Elaìai, but understands
them, whether personified or not, the same way he does the
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