Author: Douglas Galbi

The eminent warrior Achilles raged at King Agamemnon for taking for himself Achilles’s beloved concubine Briseis. Achilles’s anger, wrath, and rage transformed the Trojan War.[1] Nonetheless, the goddess Demeter raged much more devastatingly at the god Zeus for arranging for their daughter Persephone to marry Hades. For that perceived relational wrong, Demeter sought to demean the immortal divinities or exterminate humanity. Classical scholars with their deeply entrenched misunderstanding of gender tend to ignore Demeter’s anger and instead emphasize her motherly grief. Demeter’s anger, wrath, and rage, as well as that of women and goddesses more generally, deserve to be better appreciated.

Demeter hid her anger, wrath, and rage about Hades abducting Persephone for marriage. After Persephone’s abduction, Demeter assumed the character of a barren old woman and wandered to Eleusis. There she became the nurse to Demophon, son of Queen Metaneira and King Keleos of Eleusis. Demeter seemed to be a kindly old woman. She promised Metaneira she would take good care of Demophon:

Be joyful, woman, and may the gods give you blessings.
As for your little boy, I will gladly take him, as you request.
I will rear him, and I don’t expect that by any negligence of his nurse
a supernatural visitation or cutter of roots will harm him.
I know a powerful counter-cutter to beat the herb-cutter,
and I know a good inhibitor of baneful pestilence.

{ καὶ σύ, γύναι, μάλα χαῖρε, θεοὶ δέ τοι ἐσθλὰ πόροιεν.
παῖδα δέ τοι πρόφρων ὑποδέξομαι, ὥς με κελεύεις·
θρέψω, κοὔ μιν, ἔολπα, κακοφραδίηισι τιθήνης
οὔτ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐπηλυσίη δηλήσεται οὔθ᾿ ὑποτάμνων·
οἶδα γὰρ ἀντίτομον μέγα φέρτερον ὑλοτόμοιο,
οἶδα δ᾿ ἐπηλυσίης πολυπήμονος ἐσθλὸν ἐρυσμόν. }[2]

Demeter nourished Demophon with ambrosia. At night she placed him within the hearth’s fire. His parents marveled, because “as he continually bloomed, he was like the gods in appearance {ὡς προθαλὴς τελέθεσκε, θεοῖσι δὲ ἄντα ἐώικει}.” Demeter in fact was making Demophon “ageless and immortal {ἀγήρως καί ἀθάνατος}.” Making a mortal into an immortal would challenge the privileged position of Zeus and the other immortal divinities.

Queen Metaneira unknowingly aborted Demophon becoming immortal. One night Metaneira saw Demeter placing him in the fire. Metaneira was alarmed and cried out:

Demophon, my child! The strange woman is hiding you
in the blazing fire! That is causing me grief and mournful anguish!

{ τέκνον Δημοφόων, ξείνη σε πυρὶ ἔνι πολλῶι
κρύπτει, ἐμοὶ δὲ γόον καὶ κήδεα λυγρὰ τίθησιν. }

Metaneira’s words angered Demeter. She took Demophon out of the fire and put him on the floor.[3] Then she castigated Queen Metaneira:

Ignorant and foolish humans unable to recognize
the difference between future good or ill.
And you are one of them irremediably misled by your folly!

{ νήϊδες ἄνθρωποι καὶ ἀφράδμονες οὔτ᾿ ἀγαθοῖο
αἶσαν ἐπερχομένου προγνώμεναι οὔτε κακοῖο·
καὶ σὺ γὰρ ἀφραδίηισι τεῆις νήκεστον ἀάσθης. }

Dropping her disguise, Demeter then declared her true name. Calling herself the greatest good to mortals and immortals, she instructed Queen Metaneira to have all the people of Eleusis build a huge temple for her. She said she would then instruct the people how to perform sacred rites pleasing to her.[4] Demeter’s anger at Zeus seems to have been temporarily redirected at Metaneira and the people of Eleusis.

When the people of Eleusis instituted proper worship of Demeter, she directed her anger back at Zeus. She sat in her new temple at Eleusis and shunned the other immortals. To further hurt them, she acted to exterminate humanity:

She made the most terrible year for all mortals across the
nurturing earth, a most grievous year. The earth did not sprout
any seed, for fair-garlanded Demeter suppressed the seed.
Many oxen dragged curved plows over the fields, all in vain.
Many white barley seeds fell into the soil, all in vain.
Indeed, she would have destroyed humanity altogether
by grievous famine, thus depriving the immortal
dwellers of Olympus of their honors and sacrificial food.

{ αἰνότατον δ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐπὶ χθόνα πουλυβότειραν
ποίησ᾿ ἀνθρώποις καὶ κύντατον· οὐδέ τι γαῖα
σπέρμ᾿ ἀνίει· κρύπτεν γὰρ ἐϋστέφανος Δημήτηρ·
πολλὰ δὲ καμπύλ᾿ ἄροτρα μάτην βόες εἷλκον ἀρούραις,
πολλὸν δὲ κρῖ λευκὸν ἐτώσιον ἔμπεσε γαίηι.
καί νύ κε πάμπαν ὄλεσσε γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
λιμοῦ ὕπ᾿ ἀργαλέης, γεράων τ᾿ ἐρικυδέα τιμήν
καὶ θυσιῶν ἤμερσεν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾿ ἔχοντας }

If Zeus wanted to exterminate humanity, he would kill them all directly with thunderbolts and storms. Indirect aggression is more characteristic of goddesses and women. Demeter sought to exterminate humanity through famine in order to deprive Zeus and all the other gods, including herself, of offerings from humans. Although scarcely expressed and motivating only indirect aggression, Demeter’s devastating rage didn’t even spare herself.

Noticing Demeter’s anger, wrath, and rage, all-knowing Zeus did whatever was necessary to mollify her. First he sent the goddess Iris to beg Demeter to come to Olympus. Demeter refused to come. Zeus then sent other immortals who offered Demeter gifts and honors if she would rejoin the divinities on Olympus. Demeter again refused to join the other immortals. Finally, Zeus sent Hermes to bring Persephone back from the Underworld. Hermes explained to Hades the urgent need:

Sable-haired Hades, lord of the dead,
Zeus the Father has ordered me to bring illustrious Persephone
back from the dark Underworld to those above, so that her mother
may set eyes on her and cease from her wrath and terrifying rage
against the immortals. For Demeter is intending a grave deed —
to destroy the feeble tribes of earth-born humans
by keeping the seed hidden under the soil. She thus would destroy
tribute to the immortals. Her wrath is terrifying. She refuses
to mingle with the gods, but stays apart, seated inside
her fragrant temple occupying Eleusis’s rugged citadel.

{ Ἅιδη κυανοχαῖτα καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσων,
Ζεύς με πατὴρ ἤνωγεν ἀγαυὴν Περσεφόνειαν
ἐξαγαγεῖν Ἐρέβεσφι μετὰ σφέας, ὄφρα ἑ μήτηρ
ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδοῦσα χόλου καὶ μήνιος αἰνῆς
ἀθανάτοις λήξειεν· ἐπεὶ μέγα μήδεται ἔργον,
φθεῖσαι φῦλ᾿ ἀμενηνὰ χαμαιγενέων ἀνθρώπων
σπέρμ᾿ ὑπὸ γῆς κρύπτουσα, καταφθινύθουσα δὲ τιμάς
ἀθανάτων. ἣ δ᾿ αἰνὸν ἔχει χόλον, οὐδὲ θεοῖσιν
μίσγεται, ἀλλ᾿ ἀπάνευθε θυώδεος ἔνδοθι νηοῦ
ἧσται, Ἐλευσῖνος κραναὸν πτολίεθρον ἔχουσα. }

Less strong-willed than Demeter, Hades readily agreed to having his beloved Persephone taken away from him and brought to her mother Demeter in Eleusis. Zeus assented to having Persephone spend two-thirds of the year with her mother Demeter and one-third of the year with her husband Hades.[5] That arrangement mollified Demeter. No longer in rage seeking to exterminate humanity, she enabled crops to grow.

Goddesses and women deserve to be well-recognized for their devastating anger, wrath, and rage. In the ancient Greek-speaking world, a poet begin a hymn to Demeter in a telling way:

Sing, goddess, the wrath of Demeter of the splendid fruit.

{ Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Δημήτερος ἀγλαοκάρπου }[6]

That verse adapts the opening line of the Homeric Iliad:

Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.

{ Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος }[7]

Achilles’s anger, wrath, and rage has been recognized as “the demonic destructive power of a justified curse.” Demeter’s anger, wrath, and rage, in contrast, was arguably less justified and certainly more potentially destructive.[8] Moreover, Demeter’s rage follows the pattern of goddesses’ cosmos-ordering rage. For example, Zeus feared the wrath of the goddess Thetis, mother of Achilles. Hera controlled Zeus, and in her rages manipulated mortals’ fate. Many men have long regarded beloved mortal women to be goddesses, and men are justifiably wary of criticizing women. The anger, wrath, and rage of women and goddesses shape the world.

In contrast to assertions of gender supremacists, women and goddesses are equal to men and gods in propensity to anger, wrath, and rage. Women and goddess, however, are more socially adept in self-presentation and more skilled in indirect aggression. In addition, women and goddess have been unfairly deprived of credit for their anger, wrath, and rage. The rage of Achilles as represented in the Iliad has been enormously influential. The rage of Demeter deserves to be equally well known.

* * * * *

Read more:

• Iambe / Baubo with obscenity cheered despondent goddess Demeter
• Zeus should have rejected Thetis’s plea for her son Achilles
• Greek women warriors danced Pyrrhic victory for gender equality

Notes:

[1] In this post, anger, wrath, and rage refer to the Homeric Greek word μῆνις (transliterated as mênis) and closely related Homeric Greek words. For detailed philological study of μῆνις in relation to Achilles as represented in the Iliad, Muellner (1996). The book summary in the online version of Meullner’s book states:

He believes that notions of anger vary between cultures and that the particular meaning of a word such as menis needs to emerge from a close study of Greek epic. Menis means more than an individual’s emotional response. On the basis of the epic exemplifications of the word, Muellner defines the term as a cosmic sanction against behavior that violates the most basic rules of human society.

For all his close study of Homeric Greek, Muellner repeatedly asserts that Hades rapes Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. See, e.g. Muellner (1996) p. 34. That’s philologically incorrect. See note [1] in my post on Iambe / Baubo cheering Demeter.

While carelessly and expansively using the term rape in relation to males victimizing females, Muellner focuses on the benefits of females victimizing males:

What has aroused Demeter’s mênis is the forceful (βίῃ), unwilling (ἀέκουσα), and inescapable (ἀναγκῃ) removal of her divine daughter (κούρη) from the surface of the earth to the world below. In contrast to the passionate upward thrust of the mortal warrior or the insubordinate Ares, and in contrast to the uplifting, willing seduction of mortal men by goddesses, the offensive, dangerous act here is unwilled and downward in the cosmic hierarchy: not a man’s seduction but a maiden’s rape, not the immortalization of a mortal but the relegation of an immortal to the land of the dead.

Muellner (1996) p. 25. Careful attention to the meaning of the word “rape” and concern to avoid gender bias in asserting that felony crime are a particularly important matter of social justice given the vastly gender disproportionate imprisonment of men.

Trivializing the actual central meaning of the word “rape” in current English language and current criminal law, Sowa redefines it to discuss the motif of “Rape” in relation to the Homeric hymns:

Rape, as we shall use the term, describes a violent abduction often carried out for sexual purposes.

Sowa (1984) p. 121. Personally redefining words to align them with prevailing anti-men gender bigotry in interpreting ancient Greek literature is bad philology. Hades violently abducted Persephone, with the consent of her father Zeus, in order to marry her. Marriage is much broader than a “sexual purpose.” As for violent abduction, men taken captive in war and other hostilities are never considered under a specially defined “Rape” motif. Many scholars, artists, and writers have uncritically followed bigoted assertions about the “Rape” of Persephone. See, e.g. Ginevra (2020).

[2] Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2, To Demeter {Εισ Δημητραν}), vv. 225-30, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from West (2003). Alternate English translations are those of Nagy (2018), Rayor (2004), Shelmerdine (1995), Foley (1994) and Evelyn-White (1914). Subsequent quotes from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter are similarly sourced.

In Egypt, Demeter was associated with the goddess Isis. In Latin literature, Demeter became associated with Ceres, and Hades and Persephone became Pluto / Dis and Proserpina.

Daughters of King Keleus of Eleusis told the disguised Demeter the names of the nominally leading men of Eleusis. These princesses knowingly declared women’s control:

The wives of all of them manage the houses.

{ τῶν πάντων ἄλοχοι κατὰ δώματα πορσαίνουσιν }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter v. 156. The houses seem to refer to royal residences in the past and religious temples in the present. Nagy (2018) n. 12. In any case, women controlled the core of ordinary life.

Subsequent quotes above from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter are vv. 241 (as he continually bloomed…), 242 (ageless and immortal), 248-9 (Demophon, my child…), 256-8 (Ignorant and foolish humans…), 305-12 (She made the most terrible year…), 347-56 (Sable-haired Hades, lord of the dead…).

[3] A similar story immortalizing / abusing a child developed in relation to the goddess Thetis, her son Achilles, and his father Peleus. See note [3] and related text in my post on Achilles and his foster-father Chiron.

[4] Demeter stated that her temple should be built in Eleusis:

above Kallichoron on a prominent hill

{ Καλλιχόρου καθύπερθεν ἐπὶ προύχοντι κολωνῶι· }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter v 272. Καλλιχόρου literally means “beautiful dancing.” Pausanias reported:

The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus, of Artemis of the Portal, and of Poseidon Father, and a well called Kallichoron, where the Eleusinian women first danced and sang in praise of the goddess.

{ Ἐλευσινίοις δὲ ἔστι μὲν Τριπτολέμου ναός, ἔστι δὲ Προπυλαίας Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ Ποσειδῶνος Πατρός, φρέαρ τε καλούμενον Καλλίχορον, ἔνθα πρῶτον Ἐλευσινίων αἱ γυναῖκες χορὸν ἔστησαν καὶ ᾖσαν ἐς τὴν θεόν. }

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.17.2 (Attica), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Jones (1918). Demeter could thus look down on women dancing in her praise.

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, v. 154, refers to Eumolpus {Εὔμολπος}. He was known as one of Demeter’s first priests and a founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Eumolpus means literally “he who sings well.” In a cult context, singing well also implies dancing well. On Eumolpus, Nagy (2018) n. 12. Dancing, which both men and women did, was of central importance in ancient Greece.

[5] According to the hymn singer / narrator, before Hermes took Persephone away, Hades surreptitiously “gave her a honeysweet pomegranate seed to eat {ῥοιῆς κόκκον ἔδωκε φαγεῖν μελιηδέα λάθρηι}.” Homeric Hymn to Demeter, v. 372. Verses 387-40, which are significantly damaged in the sole surviving manuscript, apparently have Demeter saying fearfully that if Persephone ate any of Hades’s food, then she has to stay with him one-third of the year. Persephone then told her mother Demeter:

He put into me a pomegranate seed, honey-sweet food,
and forced me to eat it unwillingly.

{ ἔμβαλέ μοι ῥοιῆς κόκκον, μελιηδέ᾿ ἐδωδήν,
ἅκουσαν δὲ βίηι με προσηνάγκασσε πάσασθαι. }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter, vv. 372, 412-3. Honey-sweet pomegranate seeds historically were associated with fertility and marriage. Bezzant, (2019), which has a forced interpretation of the evidence.

Persephone saying that she was forced to eat the pomegranate seed deflects to Hades full responsibility for Persephone spending a third of the year in the Underworld. Ancient audiences surely would have had some doubt about Persephone’s claim of being forced to eat the pomegranate seed. Clay (1989) pp. 256-7. On the implicit audience, Hendriksma (2019). Id. follows anti-meninist orthodoxy in wrongly claiming that the Homeric Hymn to Demeter includes Hades raping Persephone.

[6] From Orphic Fragment / Orphicorum Fragmenta 48 in Kern (1922), English translation from Nickel (2003) p. 59. Fragment preserved in pseudo-Justin Martyr, Exhortation to the Greeks / Cohortatio ad Graecos {Λόγος παραινέτικος πρὸς Ἕλληνας} 17.1 (from the fourth century GC). The epithet “of splendid fruit {ἀγλαόκαρπος}” is used for Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, v. 4.

Orphic hymns probably from the third century GC praise Demeter and plead to her. See Orphic hymns 40 and 41 in Athanassakis & Wolkow (2013). Mentioning Demeter’s rage in such hymns would be incongruous. Orphic Fragment 48 might come from much older Orphic poetry. On the ancient Orphic tradition, West (1983).

[7] Homer, Iliad 1.1, ancient Greek text and my English translation. “Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles” is the translation of Fagles (1990). On the proem to the Iliad, Redfield (1979). The Chryses episode that takes up much of Book 1 of the Iliad might have been adapted from a preexisting Homeric hymn to Apollo. Faraone (2015). On parallels between Chryses and Demeter, Nickel (2003) pp. 73-4.

[8] The short quote “the demonic destructive power of a justified curse” is from Redfield (1979) p. 97. Demeter raged at Persephone’s father Zeus depriving Demeter of Persephone’s company. Such changes in child custody typically aren’t regarded as an acute wrong. Moreover, arranged marriages of various types and changes in household residence have been common for daughters and sons throughout history and across cultures. For example, in the first half of the fourth century BGC, Erinna lamented that her friend Baucis’s marriage brought forgetfulness:

When you went to a man’s bed, you forgot all
that you heard as a child from your mother,
dear Baucis. Aphrodite set forgetfulness in your heart.
Because of this, weeping for you, I leave behind other things.

{ ἁνίκα δ’ ἐς [λ]έξος [ἀνδρός ἔβας, τ]όκα πάντ’ ἐλέσασο
ἄσσ’ ἔτι νηπιάσα[σα] τ[εᾶς παρὰ] ματρὸς ἄκουσας,
Β]αῦκι φίλα· λάθα[ν ἄρ’] ἐ[νὶ φρεσὶ θῆκ’] Ἀφροδίτα.
τῶ τυ κατακλαίοισα τὰ [κάδεα νῦν] παραλείπω· }

Erinna, Distaff {Αλακατα} vv. 15-18, ancient Greek text ed. pr. Vitelli-Norsa, Papiri Greci e Latini, ix. 1929, no. 1090, English translation (modified) from Page (1941) p. 489. For a closer, more complete translation of the Distaff, as well as Erinna’s surviving epigrams, Rayor (1991) pp. 121-4. Freely available online are more interpretative translations by Josephine Balmer and by Michael R. Burch. Erinna’s circumstances were similar to Demeter’s, but Erinna apparently didn’t seek to exterminate humanity.

The story pattern of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is similar to the story pattern of Achilles in the Iliad: “the same story pattern – wrath, withdrawal, and return – serves as the principal organizational device of each poem’s narrative.” Nickel (2003) p. 59. For less extensive and less detailed analysis of the commonalities, Lord (1967) and Sowa (1984) Chapter 4.

[images] (1) Hades abducting Persephone. Painting on an Apulian red-figure volute-krater. Painted c. 340 BGC by the circle of the Darius Painter. Krater preserved as accession # Inv. 1984.40 in the Altes Museum (Berlin, Germany). Source image thanks to Bibi Saint-Pol and Wikimedia Commons.

(2) Roman marble statue of Demeter standing, with restored head. Preserved as Inv. 8546, Ludovisi Collection, in Museo nazionale romano di palazzo Altemps (Rome, Italy). Source image thanks to Marie-Lan Nguyen and Wikimedia Commons.

(3) Persephone returning from the Underworld with Hermes to Demeter. Painting on a terracotta bell-krater. Painted c. 440 BGC and attributed to the Persephone Painter. Preserved as object number 28.57.23 in the Metropolitan Museum (New York, USA). Credit line: Fletcher Fund, 1928. Alternate image.

(4) Hades lustfully abducting naked Persephone. This watercolor painting is titled “Nouvelle Mythologie Amoureuse {New Love Mythology}.” Painted by Gerda Wegener and published in the review Le Sourire, July 6, 1933. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. Numerous paintings from the early modern period to the present present the myth of the “Rape of Persephone.” See, for example, such a painting by Peter Paul Rubens.

(5) Hades sexually assaulting the naked Persephone. Print by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, based on the design of Rosso Fiorentino, as part of his collection Gli Amori Degli Dei {The Loves of the Gods}, printed c. 1527. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. Alternate image. On Caraglio’s Loves of the Gods, Turner (2007).

References:

Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, trans. 2013. The Orphic Hymns. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bezzant, Makayla. 2019. “Pomegranate Imagery: A Symbol of Conquest and Victory.” Studia Antiqua. 18 (1): 9-15.

Clay, Jenny Strauss. 1989. The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Review by Christian Werner.

Evelyn-White, Hugh G. 1914. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. London: William Heinemann Ltd.

Fagles, Robert, trans. and Bernard Knox, intro. and notes. 1990. The Iliad. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking.

Faraone, Christopher A. 2015. “On the Eve of Epic: Did the Chryses Episode in Iliad I Begin Its Life as a Separate Homeric Hymn?” Chapter 15 (pp. 397-428) in Ilya Kliger and Boris Maslov, eds. 2015. Persistent Forms: Explorations in Historical Poetics. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.

Foley, Helene P. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Review by William Thalmann.​

Ginevra, Riccardo. 2020. “The Poetics of Distress, the Rape of the Heavenly Maiden, and the Most Ancient Sleeping Beauty: Oralistic, Linguistic, and Comparative Perspectives on the (Pre-)Historical Development of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.” Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) Research Bulletin 8.

Hendriksma, Judith A. 2019. Text and Context: The Narrative Audience of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Cult at Eleusis. RMA Thesis, Utrecht University.

Jones, W. H. S., ed. and trans. 1918. Pausanias. Description of Greece. Volume I: Books 1-2. Loeb Classical Library 93. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kern, Otto. 1922. Orphicorum Fragmenta. Berolini Apud Weidmannos.

Lord, Mary Louise. 1967. “Withdrawal and Return: An Epic Story Pattern in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in the Homeric Poems.” The Classical Journal. 62 (6): 241–48.

Muellner, Leonard Charles. 1996. The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Alternate source. Review by Michael Lynn-George.

Nagy, Gregory. 2018. “Homeric Hymn to Demeter.” Online at The Center for Hellenic Studies.

Nickel, Roberto. 2003. “The Wrath of Demeter: Story Pattern in the Hymn to Demeter.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica. 73 (1): 59–82.

Page, Denys L., trans. 1941. Select Papyri, Volume III: Poetry. Loeb Classical Library 360. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rayor, Diane J. 1991. Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Rayor, Diane J. 2004. The Homeric Hymns: A Translation with Introduction and Notes. Updated edition, 2014. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rayor’s translation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2). Review by Stephen Evans.

Redfield, James. 1979. “The Proem of the Iliad: Homer’s Art.” Classical Philology. 74 (2): 95–110.

Shelmerdine, Susan C., trans. 1995. The Homeric Hymns. Newburyport, MA: Focus Information Group. Review by Ingrid Holmberg.

Sowa, Cora Angier. 1984. Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns. Chicago: Bolchazy-Carducci. Excerpts.

Turner, James Grantham. 2007. “Caraglio’s Loves of the Gods.” Print Quarterly. 24 (4): 359–80.

West, Martin L. 1983. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

West, Martin L., ed. and trans. 2003. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Loeb Classical Library 496. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Review by R. Garner.

According to the ancient Greek Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the goddess of grain and fertility Demeter grieved that her younger brother Zeus, the nominal head god in charge of the cosmos, had arranged for hellish Hades to abduct their daughter Persephone. Hades took Persephone to the Underworld to be his wife. Demeter’s grief was not just the grief of a goddess mistreated by a younger brother with whom she had a daughter. Her grief was the grief of every mother separated from her daughter by her daughter’s marriage.

Demeter disguised herself as an old woman and forlornly wandered until she came to Eleusis. In ancient Greece, even princesses weren’t sequestered within the home. The daughters of Queen Metaneira and King Keleos of Eleusis were out fetching water when they came upon Demeter in her old-woman disguise. Calling herself Doso, Demeter claimed that she was fleeing from pirates who had captured her. She said that she was seeking work as a nurse and home-keeper. The princesses brought her back to their home, where their mother Queen Metaneira had agreed to hire her.

When Demeter entered the royal home, Queen Metaneira invited her to sit and offered her food and drink. Demeter was a sullen guest until the servant Iambe warmed her up with obscene jests:

She greeted no one with word or gesture,
but unsmiling, tasting neither food nor drink,
sat there pining for her low-waistbanded daughter,
until at last well-discerning Iambe with mocking and
many a jest diverted the holy lady so that
she smiled and laughed and became benevolent —
Iambe who ever since has pleased her in her moods.

{ οὐδέ τιν᾿ οὔτ᾿ ἔπεϊ προσπτύσσετο οὔτέ τι ἔργωι,
ἀλλ᾿ ἀγέλαστος ἄπαστος ἐδητύος ἠδὲ ποτῆτος
ἧστο, πόθωι μινύθουσα βαθυζώνοιο θυγατρός,
πρίν γ᾿ ὅτε δὴ χλεύηις μιν Ἰάμβη κέδν᾿ εἰδυῖα
πολλὰ παρασκώπτουσ᾿ ἐτρέψατο πότνιαν ἁγνήν
μειδῆσαι γελάσαι τε καὶ ἵλαον σχεῖν θυμόν·
ἣ δή οἱ καὶ ἔπειτα μεθύστερον εὔαδεν ὀργαῖς. }[1]

Offering and receiving hospitality properly were major ethical concerns in ancient Greece. Iambe personifies the ancient Greek Iambic tradition of using coarse words and low subjects to serve important ethical concerns. Iambe using obscenity in conversation with Demeter is attested in ancient Greek sources from no later than the third century BGC.[2]

Another literary tradition of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, called the Orphic tradition, has the woman Baubo in the place of Iambe and includes jesting with an obscene gesture. About 195 GC, Clement of Alexandria, a well-informed Christian scornful of the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Athenians, wrote:

And I will not leave unmentioned that Baubo, extending hospitality to Demeter, offers her the drink kykeon. When Demeter refuses it and does not want to drink because she is grieving, Baubo gets angry, perhaps for being disdained. Baubo then exhibits her private parts — she shows them to the goddess. Demeter is pleased with the sight. Delighted with the spectacle, she accepts the drink right away. These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians. And this is what Orpheus has written. I will quote for you the exact words by Orpheus, so that you will receive the testimony of impudence from the very originator of the mysteries:

Having said this, she drew up her robes, and showed
all the unseemly form of her body. The child Iacchus was there
and laughing, plunged his hands below her breasts.
And then the goddess smiled, in her heart she smiled,
and then she drank from the gleaming cup filled with kykeon.

{ καὶ δὴ (οὐ γὰρ ἀνήσω μὴ οὐχὶ εἰπεῖν) ξενίσασα ἡ Βαυβὼ τὴν Δηὼ ὀρέγει κυκεῶνα αὐτῇ· τῆς δὲ ἀναινομένης λαβεῖν καὶ πιεῖν οὐκ ἐθελούσης (πενθήρης γὰρ ἦν) περιαλγὴς ἡ Βαυβὼ γενομένη, ὡς ὑπεροραθεῖσα δῆθεν, ἀναστέλλεται τὰ αἰδοῖα καὶ ἐπιδεικνύει τῇ θεῷ· ἡ δὲ τέρπεται τῇ ὄψει ἡ Δηὼ καὶ μόλις ποτὲ δέχεται τὸ ποτόν, ἡσθεῖσα τῷ θεάματι. ταῦτ᾿ ἔστι τὰ κρύφια τῶν Ἀθηναίων μυστήρια. ταῦτά τοι καὶ Ὀρφεὺς ἀναγράφει. παραθήσομαι δὲ σοι αὐτὰ τοῦ Ὀρφέως τὰ ἔπη, ἵν᾿ ἔχῃς μάρτυρα τῆς ἀναισχυντίας τὸν μυσταγωγόν·

ὣς εἰποῦσα πέπλους ἀνεσύρετο, δεῖξε δὲ πάντα
σώματος οὐδὲ πρέποντα τύπον· παῖς δ᾿ ἦεν Ἴακχος,
χειρί τέ μιν ῥίπτασκε γελῶν Βαυβοῦς ὑπὸ κόλποις·
ἡ δ᾿ ἐπεὶ οὖν μείδησε θεά, μείδησ᾿ ἐνὶ θυμῷ,
δέξατο δ᾿ αἰόλον ἄγγος, ἐν ᾧ κυκεὼν ἐνέκειτο. }[3]

Iacchus was associated with the cult of Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries from no later than the sixth century BGC. The baby Iacchus apparently reached toward Baubo’s uncovered vulva. That gesture suggests that the sight of Baubo’s vulva cheered the goddess Demeter.[4]

Iacchus and the Eleusinian Mysteries were associated with obscene jesting. In Aristophanes’s play Frogs, performed in Athens in 405 BGC, a chorus of initiates in mock-Eleusinian Mysteries sings:

Just now in fact I stole a glance
at a young girl, a very pretty one too,
a playmate,
and where her dress was torn I saw
her titty peeking out.
Iacchus lover of choruses, escort me on my way.

{ καὶ γὰρ παραβλέψας τι μειρακίσκης
νυνδὴ κατεῖδον καὶ μάλ᾿ εὐπροσώπου,
συμπαιστρίας,
χιτωνίου παραρραγέντος
τιτθίον προκύψαν.
Ἴακχε φιλοχορευτά, συμπρόπεμπέ με. }[5]

The female exposure here in the presence of Iacchus is similar to that in Clement’s excerpt. This chorus also provides obscene jesting of the sort plausibly associated with Iambe / Baubo:

And I hear that Cleisthenes’s son
is in the graveyard, plucking
his asshole and tearing his mouth.
All bent over, he kept beating his head,
wailing and weeping
for Humpus of Wankton, whoever that may be.
And Callias, we’re told,
that son of Hippo-coitus,
fights at sea in a lionskin made of pussy.

{ τὸν Κλεισθένους δ᾿ ἀκούω
ἐν ταῖς ταφαῖσι πρωκτὸν
τίλλειν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ σπαράττειν τὰς γνάθους·
κἀκόπτετ᾿ ἐγκεκυφώς,
κἄκλαε κἀκεκράγει
Σεβῖνον ὅστις ἐστὶν Ἁναφλύστιος.
καὶ Καλλίαν γέ φασι
τοῦτον τὸν Ἱπποκίνου
κύσθου λεοντῆς ναυμαχεῖν ἐνημμένον. }

This jesting ridicules particular men’s sexuality with specific bodily references. Baubo lifting her robes to expose her vulva has similar bodily specificity. However, Demeter almost surely smiled and laughed sympathetically with Iambe / Baubo, not scornfully at another person.

Ancient Greek texts concerning women exposing their vulvas as communicative acts suggest that Demeter smiled and laughed in earthy appreciation for women gestating and birthing children. In one instance, a woman exposing her vulva to her husband is interpreted as an expression of contempt, perhaps by suggesting that her vulva is of no sexual interest to him.[6] Within an epic context, Lycian women lifted their robes to the demigod Bellerophon in pleading to him to prevent their land from being destroyed by a tidal wave.[7] Their plea suggests that men owe women special solicitude by virtue of women’s sex. A saying attributed to Spartan mothers shames men by communicating that if they flee from violence against men, they are not men but babies in their mothers’ wombs:

Another Spartan mother, when her sons had run away from battle and come to her, said, “Where have you come now in your cowardly flight, vile scoundrels? Do you intend to slink in here from where you came forth?” And with these words she pulled up her garment and showed them her vulva.

{ Ἄλλη, τῶν υἱῶν φυγόντων ἐκ μάχης καὶ παραγενομένων ὡς αὐτήν, “ποῦ,” φησίν, “ἥκετε δραπετεύσαντες, κακὰ ἀνδράποδα; ἢ δεῦρο ὅθεν ἐξέδυτε καταδυσόμενοι;” ἀνασυραμένη καὶ ἐπιδείξασα αὐτοῖς. }[8]

Similar action was attributed to Persian women:

When the Persian men under Cyrus were fighting against the Medes, Oebares the satrap fled from the battlefield. All the Persian men under his command followed him. The Persian women marched out in a body, and met the fugitive men. Lifting up their tunics, they called out to the men, “To where are you fleeing? Or will you hide yourselves again here, from where you came?” The women’s words shamed the Persian men. They returned to the battle and put the Medean men to flight.

{ Πέρσαι Μήδοις παρετάσσοντο. Περσῶν Κῦρος ἡγεῖτο. Κύρου σατράπης Οἰβάρης ἦρξε φυγῆς, καὶ ὅσων ἡγεῖτο Περσῶν, πάντες τῷ σατράπῃ συνέφευγον. ἔνθα δὴ αἱ Περσίδες ἀπαντώμεναι τοῖς φεύγουσιν, ἀνασυράμεναι τοὺς χιτωνίσκους ‘ποῖ’ ἔφασαν ‘φεύγετε; ἢ ὅθεν ἐξέδυτε, πάλιν ἐκεῖ καταδῦναι σπεύδετε;’ ὁ λόγος τῶν γυναικῶν ᾔσχυνε τοὺς Πέρσας καὶ ἀναστρέψαντες ἐπὶ τὴν μάχην τοὺς Μήδους ἐς φυγὴν ἐτρέψαντο. }[9]

These saying associate women’s vulvas with women’s socially privileged labor of gestating and birthing children. Demeter was a mother separated from her daughter Persephone by her daughter’s marriage to Hades. One might imagine the servant Iambe / Baubo lifting her robes, exposing her vulva, and saying to Demeter, “Do you want your daughter back here?” That question humorously subverts Demeter’s grief with bodily appreciation for passages, transitions, and the development of a human life from gestation to death.

Ordinary human lives are filled with complex tradeoffs of losses and gains. Demeter mourning separation from her daughter Persephone arose from Zeus arranging for their daughter Persephone to marry Hades.[10] Seeking to win Persephone’s affection, Hades told her:

I shall not make for you an unsuitable husband to have among the gods,
for I myself am a brother to your father Zeus. By being here,
you will be queen of everything that lives and moves,
and you will have the greatest honors among the gods.
Moreover, there will be punishment forever for those
who act unrighteously and fail to propitiate your fury with sacrifices,
performed with reverent rites and perfectly made with due offerings.

{ οὔ τοι ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικὴς ἔσσομ᾿ ἀκοίτης
αὐτοκασίγνητος πατρὸς Διός· ἔνθα δ᾿ ἐοῦσα
δεσπόσσεις πάντων ὁπόσα ζώει τε καὶ ἕρπει,
τιμὰς δὲ σχήσηισθα μετ᾿ ἀθανάτοισι μεγίστας,
τῶν δ᾿ ἀδικησάντων τίσις ἔσσεται ἤματα πάντα,
οἵ κεν μὴ θυσίηισι τεὸν μένος ἱλάσκωνται
εὐαγέως ἔρδοντες, ἐναίσιμα δῶρα τελοῦντες. }[11]

In short, marriage to Hades offered Persephone a life of extraordinary privilege. It would, however, be a marriage made in Hell. Ultimately, Persephone and Hades agreed that she would spend eight months a year with her mother Demeter up among other immortals, and four months a year with her husband Hades down in the Underworld.

Iambo / Baubo with obscenity cheering the despondent goddess Demeter is the comic heart of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. About six centuries after this hymn was first sung at an ancient Greek religious festival, the Christian gospels similarly intermixed high and low. The Christian gospels proclaimed that the god who created the heavens and the earth became incarnate in the womb of a lowly, young, provincial woman.[12] That god-man Jesus wandered about on foot, cured the sick in earthly ways, and raised Lazarus from death with outrageous comic drama. Obscenity seems incongruous in a sacred proclamation only for those who don’t appreciate human life and are unable to smile and laugh.

* * * * *

Read more:

• in celibate Hell, resentful Dis threatens civil war & abducts girl
• Hermes and Priapus against oppression: farting isn’t enough
• Hippocleides doesn’t care: great moment of men’s sexed protest

Notes:

[1] Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2, To Demeter {Εισ Δημητραν}), vv. 199-205, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from West (2003). Alternate English translations are those of Nagy (2018), Rayor (2004), Shelmerdine (1995), Foley (1994) and Evelyn-White (1914).

West (2003) and others translate the Homeric epithet βαθύζωνος as “deep-girt” (βαθύς {deep} – ζώνη {belt}). I’ve replaced that with the more explicit term “low-waistbanded.” That translation adapts Nagy (2018)’s adjectival clause “with the low-slung waistband.”

This Homeric Hymn to Demeter apparently was composed for recitation at Eleusis, the most important center of the cult of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. The hymn probably dates to the first half of the sixth century. West (2003) pp. 8, 9. From not later than the fourth century BGC, Eleusis regarded Orpheus as the founder and revealer of the Eleusinian mysteries. Id. p. 8.

The surviving collection of Homeric Hymns includes another hymn to Demeter, Homeric Hymns 13. That Demeter hymn consists of only three verses:

Of Demeter the lovely-haired, the august goddess first I sing,
of her and her daughter, beautiful Persephone.
I salute you, goddess: keep this city safe, and give my song its beginning.

{ Δήμητρ᾿ ἠΰκομον σεμνὴν θεὸν ἄρχομ᾿ ἀείδειν,
αὐτὴν καὶ κούρην περικαλλέα Περσεφόνειαν.
χαῖρε, θεά, καὶ τήνδε σάου πόλιν, ἄρχε δ᾿ ἀοιδῆς. }

Ancient Greek text and English translation from West (2003).

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter narrates effects of Zeus arranging for Hades to abduct Persephone to the Underworld to be his wife. Nowhere in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter does Hades rape Persephone. Hades abducts Persephone according to the ancient practice of bridal capture, in this case with the approval and aid of Persephone’s father Zeus. Here are the verses narrating Hades’s abduction of Persephone:

Persephone in amazement reached out with both hands
to take the pretty flower plaything. But the earth of many broad paths gaped open
on the plain of Nysa, and there the Hospitable Lord Hades rushed forth
with his immortal steeds, Cronos’s son whose names are many.
Seizing her by force, he put her on his golden chariot,
and drove off, with her wailing and screaming
as she called on her father Zeus, the highest and noblest.

{ ἣ δ᾿ ἄρα θαμβήσασ᾿ ὠρέξατο χερσὶν ἅμ᾿ ἄμφω
καλὸν ἄθυρμα λαβεῖν· χάνε δὲ χθὼν εὐρυάγυια
Νύσιον ἂμ πεδίον, τῆι ὄρουσεν ἄναξ Πολυδέγμων
ἵπποις ἀθανάτοισι, Κρόνου πολυώνυμος υἱός.
ἁρπάξας δ᾿ ἀέκουσαν ἐπὶ χρυσέοισιν ὄχοισιν
ἦγ᾿ ὀλοφυρομένην· ἰάχησε δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ὄρθια φωνῆι
κεκλομένη πατέρα Κρονίδην ὕπατον καὶ ἄριστον. }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter, vv. 15-21, sourced as previously. These verses cannot be reasonably interpreted as stating or implying that Hades raped Persephone. She clearly suffered violent abduction, not rape. Cf. Foley (1994) p. 32, commenting that “sexual consumption … is uncertain in this case.” On historical practices of bridal capture, see note [2] in my post on the Sabine women.

Reflecting deeply entrenched bias toward criminalizing men, scholars have assumed that Hades raped Persephone. Foley framed with rape her influential interpretive essay on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Foley’s essay begins and ends with a quote universalizing men raping women:

Each daughter, even in the millennia before Christ, must have longed for a mother whose love for her and whose power were so great as to undo rape and bring her back from death. And every mother must have longed for the power of Demeter, the efficacy of her anger, the reconciliation with her lost self.

Rich (1976) p. 240, quoted in Foley (1994) pp. 79, 169. Another quote that Foley included in her interpretive essay suggests what it means to “undo rape”:

For the male — and this is inherent in the essential opposition between masculine and feminine — marriage, as the matriarchate recognized, is primarily an abduction, an acquisition — a rape.

Neumann (1956) p. 56. In short, gods and men as husbands are inherently rapists. Hence “to undo rape” requires separating a wife from her husband, as was imperfectly done for Persephone in relation to Hades. Foley readily assumed that Hades raped Persephone and provided a detailed interpretation:

Yet the presence of other females and the physical separation of mother and daughter at the time of the rape suggest something more than a paternal intervention in a blissful infantile unity with the mother. The adolescent girl’s attraction to the seductive narcissus and the location of the rape in the flowery meadow (where such divine rapes typically occur) suggest Persephone’s readiness for a new phase of life (see the Commentary especially on lines 1-14 and 5-14, for further discussion).

Foley (1994) p. 127. Foley’s Commentary on the Hymn to Demeter, lines 1-14 , recognized “sexual consumption … is uncertain in this case.” Id p. 32. In socially constructed rape-culture culture, what actually happened doesn’t matter. Moreover, hateful gender bigotry not only passes without criticism but is honored as deep thought. That helps to explain the criminalization of men in relation to women and the vastly gender-disproportionate imprisonment of men.

[2] Writing early in the third century BGC, Philochorus of Athens stated:

Iambe: Some say that Iambe, the daughter of Echo and Pan, made the grieving Demeter laugh at her pranks, speaking lewdly and making obscene gestures.

{ Ἰάμβη: τινὲς ὅτι Ἰάμβη Ἠχοῦς καὶ Πανὸς θυγάτηρ τὴν Δήμητραν δὲ λυποῦσαν παίζουσα καὶ ἀχρηστολογοῦσα καὶ σχήματα ἄχρηστα ποιοῦσα έποίησε γελάσαι. }

Arans (1988) p. 15, citing “Philochorus, fr. 103 (Atthis II – FGH 328 ed. Jacoby).” The reference to “obscene gestures” suggests the anasyrma {ἀνάσυρμα} of Baubo, as reported by Clement of Alexandria. See subsequent discussion above.

Choeroboscus on Hesphaestion concerning the iambic meter noted that iambus was possibly derived from Iambe compelling Demeter to laugh. Hipponax, Fragments 183 in Gerber (1999). Nagy noted:

Iambē, as we shall now see, is a personification of the iambic tradition, which reflects a ritual discourse that provokes laughter and thereby promotes fertility. This discourse, which makes fun of its targets, is often obscene in nature. The obscenity, it goes without saying, is ritual obscenity.

Nagy (2018) note 18. For more on the ancient iambic tradition, Newman (1998). Iambe’s obscenity is surprising and insightful in the context of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Good iambic poetry, like good obscenity, is innovative, surprising, and consciousness-raising. It’s not ritualistic in the sense of conventional and formulaic.

Iambe’s jesting discourse in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter plausibly reflects obscene discourse associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries at the Kephisos River and the Stenia / Thesmophoria. On such obscene discourse and gestures, scholia to Lucian of Samosata, Dialogues of the Courtesans {Ἑταιρικοὶ Διάλογοι}, cited in Newman (1998) pp. 104-5; and Foley (1994) pp. 68, 72. Diodorus, an ancient Greek historian writing between 60 BGC and 30 BGC, noted:

And it is a custom for Sicilians in these days {of the Thesmophoria, a woman’s festival} to use obscene language during their conversations with one another, because the goddess Demeter, while grieving at the abduction of Persephone, laughed because of the obscene language.

{ ἔθος δ᾿ ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἐν ταύταις ταῖς ἡμέραις αἰσχρολογεῖν κατὰ τὰς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁμιλίας διὰ τὸ τὴν θεὸν ἐπὶ τῇ τῆς Κόρης ἁρπαγῇ λυπουμένην γελάσαι διὰ τὴν αἰσχρολογίαν. }

Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library / Bibliotheca historica {Βιβλιοθήκη Ἱστορική} 5.4.6, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from Oldfather (1939.

[3] Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks / Protrepticus {Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας} 2.18, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Butterworth (1919). This text is also known as Kern’s Orphic fragment 52. It’s included in Eusebius’s Preparation for the Gospel / Praeparatio evangelica {Εὐαγγελικὴ προπαρασκευή} 2.3.32-34. Clement literally refers to Deo {Δηώ}, which is another name for Demeter.

Baubo, not Queen Metaneira, is the host to Demeter in Clement’s account. In the Orphic Fragment 49 of Otto Kern, Baubo is the mother of Demophon, the son of Metaneira and Keleos of Eleusis in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Hesychius of Alexandria indicated “‘Baubô’: [. . .] it also means ‘womb,’ as in Empedocles {βαυβώ: [. . .] σημαίνει δὲ καὶ κοιλίαν ὡς παρ’ Ἐμπεδοκλεῖ}.” Laks & Most (2016) Empodocles, Testimonia, Doctrine, D160.

The drink kykeon {κυκεών} consisted of barley-meal, grated cheese and Pramnian wine. Butterworth (1919) p. 43, note a. Kykeon was a drink used in initiating persons into the Eleusinian mysteries. Clement of Alexander, Protrepticus 2.21.2, cited by Foley (1994) p. 68.

The Iambe passage from Clement of Alexander presents textual difficulties:

Variation in manuscripts and the variety of editorial conjectures/emendations indicate a certain degree of scholarly indecision as to what exactly happened in Eleusis between exhibitionistic Baubo, the impetuous child, and the smiling Demeter.

Arans (1988) pp.19-20, n. 34. For documentation of these textual differences, id. pp. 19-20, 25-26. Id. p. 26 provides the edited text, with English translation, of Marcovich (1986) p. 295. Differences between the text quoted above and Marcovich’s edition aren’t relevant to the points of this post.

Writing about a century after Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius of Sicca in present-day Tunisia wrote a Latin passage apparently in the tradition of Clement’s text on Demeter and Baubo:

At that time, five earth-born persons were inhabiting Eleusis. Their names were: Baubo, Triptolemus, Eumolpus, Eubuleus, and Dysaules. Triptolemus was a cow-herd. Dysaules watched over the goats. Eubuleus was a swineherd. Eumolpus tended the wool-growing sheep. From him originated and took its name the clan of Eumolpids, which is famous among the Ceropian race, the Athenians and all those who afterwards held the office of the caduce-carriers, hierophants and heralds. Baubo, whom we have said to be a dweller of Eleusinian country, extended hospitality to Ceres, who had been tired by manifold afflictions. She comforted Demeter with propitious treatment, begged her to attend to sustaining her body, and offered to her as a soothing of her feverish thirst that mixed potion, which Greece calls kykeon. But the mourning goddess turns against and rejects the ceremonies of humanity, for her immortal fortune allows her no concern with her own health. Baubo insisted on the contrary and entreated her, as is customary in such cases. She asked the goddess not to disdain her human nature. Yet Ceres persevered most rigidly and retained the strictness of her implacable defiance.

After this was repeated over and over again, and Baubo, with all her deference, proved unable to mitigate the stubborn attitude of her guest, Baubo changed tactics. She decided to exhilarate with a ludicrous show her guest, whom she had failed to appease in earnest. She had cleared from rather long negligence that part of her body, through which the female sex normally produces posterity and derives the very name of the feminine gender. She made it to appear cleaner and bearing an image of a little boy, still immature and pranky. She approached the grieving goddess. Among all the commonplaces of conventional utterance in consolation and comfort for bereaved persons, Baubo stripped herself, revealing her groin, and exhibited all those places of shame. The goddess fixed her eyes on Baubo’s pubic area, enjoying a unique kind of solace. Then, loosened with laughter, she took and drank the rejected potion. What Baubo’s piety had for a long time failed to achieve was thus brought about by a shameful act of obscenity.

If, by chance, someone suspects us of wicked calumny, let that person consult the books of the Thracian bard Orpheus. Those books, as you recall, have been passed on from divine antiquity. Let that person find that we neither have fabricated something craftily, nor are we looking for an occasion to make a mockery of the goddess, or to invent a fictitious account of the sacred tradition. Let us quote those very verses, which Orpheus the son of Calliope had uttered in Greek. Through perennial recitations he publicized for human judgment:

Saying so, she pulled up her clothes from the bottom,
and exposed to eyes what was fashioned on her groin.
Baubo tossed it up with her free hand — for down there was
a boyish face. She slaps and pulls it amusingly.
Now the goddess opens widely her august eyes and stares at the sight,
as she gradually lets go of her spirit’s troubles
and with laughter gladly empties the whole drink of kykeon.

{ Quinque illud temporis has partes incolebant terrigenae, quibus nomina haec fuerant: Baubo Triptolemus Eumolpus Eubuleus Dysaules: boum iugator Triptolemus, capellarum Dysaules custos, Eubuleus porcorum, gregis lanitii Eumolpus, a quo gens ecfluit Eumolpidarum et ducitur clarum illud apud Cecropios nomen et qui postea floruerunt caduceatores, hierophantae atque praecones. igitur Baubo illa, quam incolam diximus Eleusinii fuisse pagi, malis multiformibus fatigatam accipit hospitio Cererem, adulatur obsequiis mitibus,reficiendi corporis rogat curam ut habeat, sitientis ardori oggerit potionem cinni, cyceonem quam nuncupat Graecia: aversatur et respuit humanitatis official maerens dea nec eam fortuna perpetituur valetudinis meminisse. comis rogat illa atque hortatur contra, sicut mos est in huiusmodi casibus, ne fastidium suae humanitatis adsumat: obstinatissime durat Cere et rigoris indomiti pertinaciam retinet.

quod cum saepius fieret neque ullis quiret obsequiis ineluctabile propositum fatigari, vertit Baubo artes et quam serio non quibat allicere ludibriorum statuit exhilarare miraculis: partem illam corporis, per quam secus femineum et subolem producer et nomen solet adquirere generi, tum longiore ab incuria liberat, facit sumere habitum puriorem et in speciem levigari nondum duri atque histriculi pusionis. redit ad deam tristem et inter alia communia quibus moris est frangere ac temperare maerores retegit se ipsam atque omnia illa pudoris loca revelatis monstrat inguinibus. atque pubi adfigit oculos diva et inauditi specie solaminis pascitur: tum diffusior facta per risum aspernatam sumit atque ebibit potionem, et quod diu nequivit verecundia Baubonis exprimere propudiosi facinoris extorsit obscenitas.

calumniari nos improbe si quis forte hominum suspicatur, libros sumat Threicii vatis, quos antiquitatis memoratis esse divinae, et inveniet nos nihil neque callide fingere neque quo sint risui deum quaerere atque efficere sanctitates. ipsos namque in medio ponemus versus, quos Calliopae filius ore edidit Graeco et cantando per saecula iuri publicavit humano:

sic effata simul vestem contraxit ab imo
obiecitque oculis formatas inguinibus res:
quas cava succutiens Baubo manu – nam puerilis
ollis vultus erat – plaudit, contrectat amice.
tum dea defigens augusti luminis orbes
tristitias animi paulum mollita repoint:
inde manu poculum sumit risuque sequenti
perducit totum cyceonis laeta liquorem. }

Arnobius of Sicca, Against the pagans {Adversus nationes / Adversus gentes} 5.25-6, Latin text of Marchesi (1953) via Arans (1988) pp. 21-2, English translation (modified) from id. For an English translation of the full work, Bryce & Campbell (1871). Here are some related texts. From a strictly philological perspective, Arnobius’s testimony about Baubo, Iacchus, and Demeter has been judged to be “worthless.” Marcovich (1986) p. 301. From a historical perspective, Arnobius’s testimony usefully indicates what a Christian in northern Africa writing about 300 GC found plausible about Baubo, Iacchus, and Demeter.

Orpheus and the Eleusinian Mysteries are now understood to be deeply connected. Arans (1988) pp. 20-1, quoting West (1983) p. 263.

[4] As technical terms of anatomy, vulva refers to external female genitals, while vagina refers to the internal passageway to the cervix. The two are obviously connected. In ordinary language, vagina is commonly used to include the vulva. Vulva is used above because of the attention to display. The vagina is implicit in that display.

A woman lifting her garments to display her vulva is known by the ancient Greek term anasyrma {ἀνάσυρμα} / anasyrmos {ἀνασυρμός}. It apparently was an ancient claim to social privilege like a woman exposing her breasts. Fragments from the sixth-century BGC iambic poet Hipponax indicate that anasyrma was known to Hipponax, who used the word “self-exposer {ἀνασυρτόλις}.” The Suda explained:

Hipponax calls her ‘opening of filth’ as of one who is impure, from βόρβορος, ‘filth,’ and ‘self-exposer’ from ἀνασύρεσθαι ‘to pull up one’s clothes.’

{ Ἱππῶναξ δὲ “βορβορόπιν” ὡς ἀκάθαρτον ταύτην φησίν, ἀπὸ τοῦ βορβόρου, καὶ “ἀνασυρτό{πο}λιν” ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνασύρεσθαι. }

Hipponax, Fragments 135, 135a, 135b, ancient Greek text and English translation from Gerber (1999). Arans seems to have missed this evidence:

In Greece, there is no known custom of women pulling up their clothes; instead, such customs existed in Egypt. (Her. 2.60; Diod. Sic. 1.85.)

Arans (1988) p. 33. In Herodotus, Histories 2.69, women traveling on the Nile to the festival at Boubastis apparently mooned persons on the riverbanks. See note [15] in my post on sardonic medieval literature. In Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 1.85, women pulled up their garments to display their genitals to the sacred bull Apis in the sanctuary of Hephaestus at Memphis. For other evidence of ancient Greek women pulling up their clothes, see subsequent discussion above.

Women’s genitals were generally regarded much more favorably than men’s genitals. Men didn’t fear women’s genitals. To the contrary, men desired women’s genitals. Considerable implicit cultural continuity exists with ancient Mesopotamian views of women’s genitals.

[5] Aristophanes, Frogs / Ranae {Βάτραχοι} vv. 409-13, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Henderson (2002). The subsequent quote above is similarly from Frogs, vv. 422-30.

[6] The example of a women lifting her dress to express contempt for a man (in context plausibly her husband) comes from Artemidorus in the second century GC:

A man dreamed that his wife lifted up her clothes and showed him her genitals. His wife caused him much suffering, for she lifted up her dress as she would to a contemptible person.

{ ἔδοξέ τις ἀναστειλαμένην τὴν γυναῖκα ἐπιδεικνύειν αὐτῶι τὸ αἰδοῖον. πολλῶν κακῶν αἰτία ἐγένετο αὐτῶι ἡ γυνή· ὥσπερ γὰρ εὐκαταφρονήτωι ἀνεστείλατο. }

Artemidorus of Ephesus / Artemidorus Daldianus {Ἀρτεμίδωρος ὁ Δαλδιανός}, Oneirocritica {Ὀνειροκριτικὰ} 4.44, ancient Greek text from Pack (1963), English translation (modified insubstantially) from White (1975).

[7] The Corinthian demigod Bellerophon was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and the Corinthian queen Eurynome. He was unable to hold his position against Lycian women lifting their garments and showing him their vulvas:

Bellerophon waded into the sea and prayed to Poseidon that, as a requital against the Lycian king Iobates, the land might become sterile and unprofitable. After his prayer, he went back, and a wave arose and inundated the land. It was a fearful sight as the sea, following him, rose high in air and covered up the plain. The Lycian men besought Bellerophon to check it. When they could not prevail on him, the Lycian women, pulling up their garments, came to meet him. He then, for shame, retreated towards the sea again. The wave also, it is said, went back with him.

{ ὅθεν εἰς τὴν θάλατταν ἐμβὰς εὔξατο κατ᾿ αὐτοῦ τῷ Ποσειδῶνι τὴν χώραν ἄκαρπον γενέσθαι καὶ ἀνόνητον. εἶθ᾿ ὁ μὲν ἀπῄει κατευξάμενος, κῦμα δὲ διαρθὲν ἐπέκλυζε τὴν γῆν· καὶ θέαμα δεινὸν ἦν, ἑπομένης μετεώρου τῆς θαλάττης καὶ ἀποκρυπτούσης τὸ Bπεδίον. ἐπεὶ δέ, τῶν ἀνδρῶν δεομένων τὸν ελλεροφόντην ἐπισχεῖν, οὐδὲν ἔπειθον, αἱ γυναῖκες ἀνασυράμεναι τοὺς χιτωνίσκους ἀπήντησαν αὐτῷ· πάλιν οὖν ὑπ᾿ αἰσχύνης ἀναχωροῦντος ὀπίσω καὶ τὸ κῦμα λέγεται συνυποχωρῆσαι. }

Plutarch, Moralia, Bravery of Women, “The Lycian Women {Λυκιαι}” 9 (248a-b), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Babbitt (1931).

[8] Plutarch, Moralia, Sayings of Spartan Women, “Other Spartan Women to Fame Unknown” 4 (241b), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Babbitt (1931) pp. 460-1. More on Spartan mothers.

[9] Polyaenus {Πoλύαινoς}, Strategies in War / Strategemata {Στρατηγήματα} 7.45.2, ancient Greek text of Woelfflin & Melber (1887) via Attalus, English translation of Shepherd (1793) as adapted by Attalus. For similar accounts, see Plutarch, Moralia, Bravery of Women, “The Persian Women {Περσιδεσ}” 5 (246a-b); and Justin, Philippic Histories {Historiae Philippicae} / Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus {Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi} 1.6.

[10] Parents arranging marriages for their children has been common across cultures and throughout history. Mothers in actual practice probably dominated the arranging of marriages. Moreover, a marriage was unlikely to occur unless both woman and man consented to it within the actual circumstances of their lives.

[11] Homeric Hymn to Demeter, vv. 363-9, sourced as previously.

[12] Luke 1:26-38 (angel Gabriel announces to Mary her favor in bearing Jesus); Luke 1:48 (Mary declares her low estate). Mary’s social status was such that it was fitting for her to marry a carpenter. Mark 6:13, Matthew 13:55.

[images] (1) Anasyrma Isis figurine from Egypt, second-first century BGC. Preserved as item 206 in the Egyptian Museum, Universität Leipzig. Source image thanks to Einsamer Schütze and Wikimedia Commons. For similar anasyrma Isis figurines, see accession # 88.918 and museum # 1886,0401.1451 (both dates third-second centuries BGC) in the British Museum.

(2) Venus of Hohle Fels / Venus of Schelklingen. Mammoth ivory figurine of a nude woman. Found in a cave near Schelklingen, Germany. Figurine made between 42,000 and 40,000 years ago. Source image thanks to Ramessos and Wikimedia Commons.

(3) Venus of Willendorf. Limestone figurine of a nude woman. Found near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria. Figurine made between 26,000 and 24,000 years ago. Source image thanks to Captmondo and Wikimedia Commons. Another image of the Venus of Willendorf. Many such prehistoric naked woman figurines have been found.

(4) Anasyrma of Persian women shames retreating Persian men and compels them to return to battle against the Medean men. Painting by Otto van Veen between 1597 and 1599. Preserved as inventory # Gemäldegalerie, 2668 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Image thanks to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Wikimedia Commons. The Persian women’s anasyrma was also the subject of a painting by Frans Francken the Younger in Antwerp between 1587 and 1610.

References:

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