Classical Wisdom Litterae - August 2021

LITTERAE / ISSUE 64 11 T he Eleusinian festival sprang from the myth in which De- meter’s daughter Kore (Persephone) is kidnapped by Hades, lord of the underworld. Demeter searches nine days for her daughter until she realizes her bargaining power lies in her fertility. So she halts the seasons and Earth becomes a barren wasteland. Zeus pleads with her to make the earth abundant once again, but she will not relent until Persephone is returned. So Zeus orders Hades to release her. Hades agrees, but not before luring Perse- phone into eating a pomegranate seed (in some myths, she eats more than one). The mere act of eating in the underworld binds Persephone to Hades for the three months of each year when the earth is barren. Although agricultural renewal played a part in the Mysteries, its role was later diminished in favor of the eschatological nature of De- meter’s story; that is to say, issues regarding life after death. In the minds of the ancients, nature’s resurrection each year from spring, to winter, and then back to spring, symbolized a kind of immortality that was mirrored in our soul’s own journey through the afterlife. The Return of Persephone