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

84 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)[068]Persephone; indeed in some cases it might be quite impossibleto distinguish the two if it were not for the inscriptions attachedto the figures. 240 The ancient sculptors, vase-painters, andengravers must have had some good reason for portraying thetwo goddesses in types which are almost indistinguishable fromeach other; and what better reason could they have had thanthe knowledge that the two persons of the godhead were one insubstance, that they stood merely for two different aspects of thesame simple natural phenomenon, the growth of the corn? Thusit is easy to understand why Demeter and Persephone may havebeen confused in ritual as well as in art, why in particular the partof the divine bride in a Sacred Marriage may sometimes havebeen assigned to the Mother and sometimes to the Daughter. Butall this, I fully admit, is a mere speculation, and I only put itforward as such. We possess far too little information as to aSacred Marriage in the Eleusinian Mysteries to be justified in240 See L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, iii. (Oxford, 1907), p. 259,“It was long before the mother could be distinguished from the daughter by anyorganic difference of form or by any expressive trait of countenance. On themore ancient vases and terracottas they appear rather as twin-sisters, almost asif the inarticulate artist were aware of their original identity of substance. Andeven among the monuments of the transitional period it is difficult to find anyrepresentation of the goddesses in characters at once clear and impressive. Wemiss this even in the beautiful vase of Hieron in the British Museum, wherethe divine pair are seen with Triptolemos: the style is delicate and stately, andthere is a certain impression of inner tranquil life in the group, but without theaid of the inscriptions the mother would not be known from the daughter”; id.,vol. iii. 274, “But it would be wrong to give the impression that the numismaticartists of this period were always careful to distinguish—in such a manneras the above works indicate—between mother and daughter. The old idea oftheir unity of substance still seemed to linger as an art-tradition: the very typewe have just been examining appears on a fourth-century coin of Hermione,and must have been used here to designate Demeter Chthonia who was therethe only form that the corn-goddess assumed. And even at Metapontum,where coin-engraving was long a great art, a youthful head crowned with corn,which in its own right and on account of its resemblance to the masterpieceof Euainetos could claim the name of Kore [Persephone], is actually inscribed