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In the Homeric hymn to Demeter, we have a
strong focus on women's experience.

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The main characters, the main driving
themes are things that are connected

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specifically to this example of the human
species that is gendered female.

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In our Odyssey, by contrast, we've seen
that the main point of this all was to

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look at the Andro, the Anthropos that was
gendered male. Well, here, we're going to

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look at an anthropos that is gendered
female and look at those kind of

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relationships, and the experiences that
are specific to that part of what it is,

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To, what,
What it is to be human.

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To start off, I thought we would take a
look at a couple of pairs.

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There are interesting doubleings that
happen inside of the story.

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Metaneira and Demeter is the first one I
wanted to say a few words on.

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With Metaneira and Demeter, we have an
interesting pair of figures.

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Metaneira is,
Near the end of her childbearing years, it

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says that she is someone who was waiting
for a long time for Demophoon to come.

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She was quite frightened that he wasn't
going to come at all.

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She was praying to the Gods to see if he
would come.

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And then, Demophoon arrives and she's
thrilled and excited by it.

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We have someone who is nearing the end of
that reproductive window, and she's coming

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to a close on those childbearing years.
Now she's entering into a maturing state

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of taking care of this child and raising
it, and nurturing it, and moving along.

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We meet in the figure of Demeter someone
who, in the guise that she takes in the

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story, is beyond her childbearing years.
In her disguise, she shows up as a person

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who has just been cast aside. She talks
about,

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She's referred to by people that see her
sitting on the edge there before they know

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who it is.
They don't understand who the stranger is.

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They call her granny.
They talk about her as having an

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appearance of someone who is long, caught
off from child birth.

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And when they do that, they start to peg
her as a person who belongs in a society

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only in certain places.
With that age come different rules for

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Demeter.
Most of these rules are not the kind of

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thing that a woman who is aspiring to a
grand position in society would aspire to.

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Demeter is someone who has limited
responsibilities and possibilities in this

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older stage of life.
She could be a housemaid, or a nurse.

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But she's not going to someone who has as
grand as a mother or head of a household.

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Metaneira is, by contrast,
Someone who can have those rules.

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She has a head of the household, the
fullness of her reproductive powers has

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been shown through this through this
child.

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She has capabilities, and influence, and
authority by those kind of powers of

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reproduction.
The same thing is mostly deprived of

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Demeter because of her position on the
other side of this divide.

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Persephone interestingly shows up in this
understanding this meditation as well.

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She's making a transition of a certain
kind from being a girl living with her

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mother to living in another man's home as
a wife of some other person.

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This transition in the story is very
clearly cast as a kind of violence done to

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her.
It's not a pleasant thing.

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It's painful for her and for her mother.
Its great of its these single source of

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the most dramatic moments in the story and
none of this drama is, is good drama.

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It's bad drama.
Persephone shows this transition into the

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husband's household as filled with fear
and isolation, a loss of innocence, and

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she has to now reimagine her relationships
that she had, that were most dear to her

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with her mother and others.
This is made in to in her case, an

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absolutely explicit parallel between
moving away from her matrilineal home,

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being pulled in to the home of her new
husband the, the, the man who takes her

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away, in this case, being pulled away.
That is characterized specifically as a

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kind of death.
Persephone, who is an, an immortal, goes

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down and experiences what it is to be
dead.

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Gods mostly don't do that.
Poor Hades, he spends all his time down

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there. but none of the other gods do.
There are trips that they make here and

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there, but very few of them go.
Most try to avoid it.

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Why would a person want to go down there?
Persephone lives as an immortal

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experiencing the life of a mortal after
death.

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So, her position, positioning here as a
girl who is making a transition from

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childhood into adulthood is specifically
characterized as a kind of death.

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It's quite heart wrenching, it's quite
poignant to think about all the kind of

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trauma that happened as a life goes,
undergoes great change.

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In Persephone, it's also characterizes her
entering into the stage of fertility.

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She now becomes, in the terms of the
story, it's suggested and hinted that

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what's happening here is that Persephone
is entering into the stage when her

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relationships with men are going to
change.

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The pomegranate seed is an interesting
symbol, likely to be the, symbol of a

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man's seed. And the fact that she took it
in, is something that now changes her

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status completely.
You'll recall that when she comes back and

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has a moment of audience with her mother
again after having been gone for so long,

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the mother is very nervous and asked, have
you eaten anything?

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Have you partaken of anything down in that
underworld?

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It's as though she already knows because
she could, can see it in her daughter, and

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having ingested the pomegranate seed means
that now Persephone is now in a different

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stage in her life.
And again, it is not a happy moment.

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It is a, it is a moment filled with drama
and a certain kind of certain kind of, of

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pain and loss.
Now together, Persephone makes an

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interesting pair with Demophoon. Demophoon
is the child that we see who emerges out

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of in, at,
In,

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For Metaneira late in her reproductive
life.

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And, she is the one that gives it over to
Demeter to be raised.

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Well, Demeter right away thinks, I have
this investment in raising this child.

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Demophoon clearly represents for her a
kind of substitute for the Persephone that

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she's missing.
She gets a chance to take this figure in

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and she brings Demophoon, interestingly,
from his state as a mortal child and tries

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to bring him over into becoming an
immortal.

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Notice that she gives him no mortal food,
He doesn't have mother's milk.

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Instead, she gives him something amazing.
She gives him ambrosia.

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That's the kind of food that the gods eat.
And in fact, in Homer's traditional

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association, the eating of ambrosia and
drinking of nectar is exactly what the

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gods do.
And the more of it they do, the more

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they're like gods.
When humans get a chance to taste these

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things, they start to become show signs of
being immoral.

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So, it seems in the Honeric tradition,
ambrosia and nectar actually connected

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with becoming a divinity itself.
So, the, if, the keeping food away from

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Demophoon, human food and then giving the
ambrosia to him, bring him long toward the

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immortal side of things.
Then, also, this strange custom she has of

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burying him in the fire at night, which
causes Metaneira to be a little upset, you

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can imagine.
Well, this is a linkage to blacksmithing,

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as you want to heat up metal and can make
it harder, and firmer, and more durable,

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So also, Demeter is doing this with
Demophoon.

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She thinks that through this cycle of
treatments with the ambrosia and with the

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fire, she's actually going to produce
Demophoon a immortal character and she

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will then have replaced in some little,
Or not replace, but she will have gone

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some way to recompense the loss of the
immortality of her daughter.

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So, in the book ends around the question
of death, mortality, and immortality, we

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have the figures of Demophoon and
Persephone framing them, also Metaneira

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and Demeter.
Demophoon is the mortal who is maybe

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making a transition to immortality.
Persephone, the immortal who is making the

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transition to mortality.
And, we have a lot of meditation that's

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done round this question of reproduction.
Human fertility and it's complexity,

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These are what the themes that are built
into our story.

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Each of them, interestingly, is connected
with this question of, re, reproduction is

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connected with a question of mortality and
immortality.

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Both features, I think, are present in the
idea of human reproduction.

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We're reminded at each time, the birth
happens, the marvelous miracle of new life

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coming into the world.
But, then also, each time those new lives

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are, are, are settled and we learn about
them, see them, there is some quality of

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them that also reminds us that, yes
indeed, all of us are mortal.

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The miracle of birth is a reminder also of
all of our mortality.

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So, human fertility is built into this
kind of complex and fragile set of ideas

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where a promise of immortality is tinged
always with the specter and presence of

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mortality.
So, it's as though with enfolding these

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two things together, the whole, author of
the Homeric Hymn is telling us that we

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can't really have one without the other.
We can't have this reproductive desire to

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produce offspring together with
immortality, instead mortality is going to

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come with it.
The two of them are enfolded together.

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Just behind me here we've got a wonderful
freeze that has our Demeter and

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Persephone.
Demophoon may be this figure standing

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between the two of them or another figure,
Triptolemus.

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And in later tradition, Triptolemus who's
one of the figures in the household and

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Demophoon start to exchange places.
So, it could be that that's what our

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artist is representing here.
What we're seeing here is a set of, of, of

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meditations on really important core
themes about what it is to be interesting

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to human and this drama is put over on the
side of the gods.

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We learn about stories through intimate
portrayal of characters and going through

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this upsetting, difficult times.
These characters just happened to be

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immortals but they sure do seem extremely
human.