hymn to demeter

Plouton fell in love with Persephone and secretly kidnapped her with Zeus’ help. Demeter wandered over the whole earth in search of her by day and night with torches. When she learned from the people of Hermion that Plouton had kidnapped her, she was angry with the gods and left heaven. She made herself look like a mortal woman and came to Eleusis. First she sat down upon the rock called Agelastos {“Laughless”} after her, which is located near the well known as Callichoros. Then she went to Celeos, who was at that time ruling the Eleusinians. There were women in his house, and they told her to sit with them. An old woman named Iambe joked with the goddess and made her smile. This is why they say women make jokes at the festival of the Thesmophoria. When Celeos’ wife Metaneira had a child, Demeter took it and nursed it. Wish- ing to make it immortal, she placed the infant in the fire during the night and stripped away its mortal flesh. By day Demophon (for this was the child’s name) grew astoundingly, and so Praxithea kept watch, and when she found him hidden in the fire, she cried out. For this reason the infant was destroyed by the fire, and the goddess revealed herself. She prepared a chariot with winged dragons and gave wheat to Triptolemos, the eldest of Metaneira’s children. Drawn through the sky in the chariot, he scattered seed over the whole inhabited world. But Panyasis says that Triptolemos was Eleusis’ son, for he says that it was to Eleusis1 that Demeter came. Pherecydes says that he was the son of Oceanos and Ge. When Zeus ordered Plouton to send Kore back up, Plouton gave her a pomegran- ate seed to eat so that she would not remain for a long time by her mother’s side. Not foreseeing what would result, she ate it. Ascalaphos, the son of Acheron and Gorgyra, testified against Persephone, and so Demeter placed a heavy rock on top of him in the house of Hades. Persephone was forced to remain for a third of each year with Plou- ton and the rest of the year with the gods. That is what is told about Demeter.

Apollodorus C The Rape of Persephone, Trzaskoma 20-21