The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

48 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)[037]The aim of theHomeric Hymnto Demeteris to explainthe traditionalfoundation ofthe Eleusinianmysteries byDemeter.grim lord of the Dead smiled and obeyed, but before he sent backhis queen to the upper air on a golden car, he gave her the seedof a pomegranate to eat, which ensured that she would returnto him. But Zeus stipulated that henceforth Persephone shouldspend two thirds of every year with her mother and the gods inthe upper world and one third of the year with her husband in thenether world, from which she was to return year by year whenthe earth was gay with spring flowers. Gladly the daughter thenreturned to the sunshine, gladly her mother received her and fellupon her neck; and in her joy at recovering the lost one Demetermade the corn to sprout from the clods of the ploughed fields andall the broad earth to be heavy with leaves and blossoms. Andstraightway she went and shewed this happy sight to the princesof Eleusis, to Triptolemus, Eumolpus, Diocles, and to the kingCeleus himself, and moreover she revealed to them her sacredrites and mysteries. Blessed, says the poet, is the mortal man whohas seen these things, but he who has had no share of them inlife will never be happy in death when he has descended into thedarkness of the grave. So the two goddesses departed to dwellin bliss with the gods on Olympus; and the bard ends the hymnwith a pious prayer to Demeter and Persephone that they wouldbe pleased to grant him a livelihood in return for his song. 136It has been generally recognised, and indeed it seems scarcelyopen to doubt, that the main theme which the poet set beforehimself in composing this hymn was to describe the traditionalfoundation of the Eleusinian mysteries by the goddess Demeter.The whole poem leads up to the transformation scene in whichthe bare leafless expanse of the Eleusinian plain is suddenlyturned, at the will of the goddess, into a vast sheet of ruddycorn; the beneficent deity takes the princes of Eleusis, shewsthem what she has done, teaches them her mystic rites, and136 Hymn to Demeter, 310 sqq. With the myth as set forth in the Homeric hymnmay be compared the accounts of Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, i. 5) and Ovid(Fasti, iv. 425-618; Metamorphoses, v. 385 sqq.).