Beginning with the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter, we'll find some themes that are familiar from our general knowledge of how
ancient myths worked. We all know the story of how Demeter was
connected with her daughter, and Persephone got a little bit went astray,
got sucked down to the underworld, she had a, needed to be extracted from that
situation. Her mother was deeply upset by it and her
having been upset by it makes a connection with her fertility and her dominion over
the earth and its reproductivity means that when she's upset that means that,
that reproductivity doesn't happen so much.
We all remember that, that the story is connected with the seasons.
We have a story of fertility, then, connected with a careful rendering of a
mother-daughter relationship. There's also going to be built into this
story we'll see in a coming lecture, strong themes that connect about to
women's transitions in the cycle of the aging of a woman.
Movement from childhood to adulthood and puberty, entrance into marriage and
child-bearing years and then moving from there into old age and beyond
child-bearing years. Each of these is a very rich theme pulled
out. What I wanted to start our discussion with
though harkens back to our last, last lecture.
I wanted to look at the ritual elements and made reference to in our story.
There are strong identifiable links with one particular ancient festival, that is
the Eleusinian mysteries. I've written on top of a map here to give
us a description of what generally happens in Eleusinian mysteries..
You can see we start off with Athens. That's there in our circle.
A quick trip down to Piraeus gives us a chance to get our evolutions done and we
clean ourselves up. There's a purification that happens at
Piraeus at the sea. Then a trip back to Athens and there's a
couple of days that unfold there with some ceremonies that go on.
The main procession then gets started on the fifth day as we move from Athens, over
across, we get some taunts thrown at us, ritual abuse gets hurled at us as we go
over a bridge crossing a river. We make, strangely, we're going to talk
about what that is in a second. We We make our way to Eleusis where the main
ceremony happens there on day six and seven, followed by a procession on day
nine, and we make our way home. Very famous nine day festival in
antiquity, and it was well known from as far back as we have written records
there's reference to this Elusinian mystery.
Now, we don't know a lot of the details. What we do know comes from this Homeric
Hymn to Demeter. There is not much we can use prior to this
to give us more evidence, instead what we do is try to fill that out with as best we
can, the archaeological record and some references and later sources, most of
which though are probably dependent on the tradition that we have right in front of
us. What we know about the connection between
the story told in the Homeric into Demeter and Eleusinian Mysteries, there are
connections that are really interesting to see right off the bat.
First of all, there's a location connection.
Demeter, when she gets to Eleusis finds a place that she's trying to work out her
grief with the loss of her daughter. This tells us right away that there's a
special connection between Demeter and these mysteries located at Eleusis.
Eleusis is famous for these. The name mysteries gets pulled out in the
story. We hear that Demeter understands that
these rites in her honor are going to be mysteries in her honor.
There's a focus on fertility in the Eleusinian Mysteries, which is clearly an
important component of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
We have explicit discussion in the story of the setting up of explicit rites.
We, she, Demeter wants to make sure that there is a temple made to her.
And then an altar is set up for her. This comes up in multiple times during the
story. It's not a small part of what Demeter's
demands are that the world pay her back for the loss of her daughter.
We hear about secrecy and initiation. There will be an initiation into these
mysteries and that, that initiation should be according to a process that, that's not
be shared with everybody, that should be secret.
That's characteristic of Eleusinian Mysteries,
It's mentioned explicitly in the hymn. A nine day period, such as we know the
Eleusinian Mysteries followed, is also referenced in our story.
We get a sense that the nine day chunk of time is important.
There's reference to, to Demeter wandering around for nine days.
We hear of a special drink, that she insist that she have, when she's offered
wine, a human drink, Gods wouldn't probably drink that.
Instead, she ask that a special drink be made for her.
Water with barley and peniwel. We know that this played an important part
in the Eleusinian Mysteries ritual tradition as well.
This character Yamba shows up. She is a character who cheers up Demeter
by offering some funny things, and some kind of lighthearted commentary that she
gives. This also is the name in antiquity of a
tradition of nasty satirical poetry that's very, very funny and does add a kind of
humorous tone to whatever it treats. It also is pretty direct, racy.
And a little bit it's satire is not gentle.
Now, the harshness that's involved in the form of the Yamba, the ancient satiric
genre that's referenced through this name also has a connection with this
procession. Remember, we mentioned that at a certain
point during the procession the celebrants go over a bridge over a river and there,
Teased mercilessly, the, the, the, there others that are hidden underneath there
that hurl nasty insults and epithets at people that are processing.
We're wondering, that doesn't seem quite so holy.
Well, it is indeed a part of the festival, and it's built right in here to our
account of Demeter's story. Yamba shows up, we think, as having a,
making a reference to this moment of ritual abuse that's built into the cultic
ceremony. There's a promise in the Eleusinian,
Mysteries also of a better afterlife. That's an interesting thing to show up in
ancient, ancient ritual. Mostly, ancient cultic worship, is about
giving the gods a gift, and asking the gods to be kind in return.
Mostly, it is not about securing some position in an afterlife.
For the most part as we saw in Homer, it's not a good thing to be dead.
The world in the underworld is not a place normally where ethical scores are settled.
Instead, all of us, whether we were grand folks or not so grand, just live this kind
of grey life. And it is much better to be alive than to
be dead. In the Mystery religions, there is a
different kind of thing that's promised. And this is a promise of a long and
enduring afterlife where things would be very nice for you.
Rather than live out as a gray shade among the other gray shades, those who have been
through the mystery been initiated into the cult, have learned a special sacred
codeword. That codeword could let them into a nicer
place, where they could spend all of the eternity, rather than being a gray shade
among all the others that have a nicer afterlife, as long as they knew the
special codeword that can get them in. In a way some not sure how hard I push
this, but in a way it's a little bit like being consigned to have to spend your
whole life waiting in an airport. But someone sneaks over and gives you a
special code so you can get into the admiral's club for frequent fliers, and
they'll treat you nice. Those that are stuck in the airport are
kind of like those in the gray shade area. Those with the special code to get into
the admiral's club get taken care of well. That's a little bit, I think, what's
imagined is going to happen. If you've got the special code from being
initiated into the mysteries. Now that quality and characteristics of
the Eleusinian Mysteries is reflected in the stories in the deep meditation on the,
the power and possibilities of immortality and the face of mortality.
We see Persephone, this mortal god whose going though a kind of death that she
visits the underworld and comes back out. There's a way in which the immortals and
what you and I are consigned to, We poor mortals that eventually we die.
There's a way in which their world comes closer to ours.
And a way in which an afterlife is it only suggested that it can include some of the
things that the grand immortals even experience it.
So, there's a connection between mortality and immortality built into the sequence of
the story. The exclusive rites that are practiced at
Eleusis included a code of secrecy. We have already mentioned that as being a
part of it. And I thought to close out this lecture, I
would just reveal to you the secret of the Eleusinian mysteries.
It's not only me that's doing it. It's a Christian writer named Clement of
Alexandria. And, in a piece of his writing The
Exhortation to the Greeks, he gives in, in a way, he's tried to actually be, quite
nasty with these Greeks. He says, look, they have this, totally
silly ritual that they practice in honor of this god that they think is a of, of
Demeter, and they have this secret code word that's supposed to be so important in
their initiation rites. Well, here, I'm going to reveal their
secret code word, and Clement of Alexandria writes it down and tell us,
reveals it to us what it is. Well, I'm just passing it on here.
Clement tells us that this was the secret code at Eleusinian Mysteries.
I have fasted. I have drunk the mixture, I have taken
from the box, having done the deed, I put it back into the basket, and out of the
basket into the box. Now if Clement is conveying it accurately,
Who knows all of us now know the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
In our next lecture, we are going to dig into the dramatics and try to talk about
the many rich characters that are being portrayed in this Homeric Hymn for to
Demeter. Look forward to talking to you about that
then.