In this Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone gives her own version of the
incident as follows: "We were all playing in the lovely
meadows--Leucippe, and Phaino, and Electra, and Ianthe, and Melitê, and
Iachê and Rhodeia, and Callinhoe, and Melobosis, and Ianeira, and
Acastê, and Admetê, and Rhodope, and Plouto, and winsome Calypso, and
Styx, and Urania, and beautiful Galaxamê. We were playing there and
plucking beautiful blossoms with our hands; crocuses mingled, and iris,
and hyacinth, and roses, and lilies, a marvel to behold, and narcissus,
that the wide earth bare, a wile for my undoing. Gladly was I gathering
them when the earth gaped beneath, and therefrom leaped the mighty
prince, the host of many guests, and he bare me against my will, despite
my grief, beneath the earth, in his golden chariot; and shrilly did I
cry."
The version of the legend given by Minucius Felix is as follows:
"Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres by Jupiter, as she was gathering
tender flowers in the new spring, was ravished from her delightful abode
by Pluto; and, being carried from thence through thick woods and over a
length of sea, was brought by Pluto into a cavern, the residence of
departed spirits, over whom she afterwards ruled with absolute sway. But
Ceres, upon discovering the loss of her daughter, with lighted torches
and begirt with a serpent, wandered over the whole earth for the purpose
of finding her, till she came to Eleusis; there she found her daughter,
and discovered to the Eleusinians the plantation of corn."
According to another version of the legend, Neptune met Ceres when she
was in quest of her daughter, and fell in love with her. The goddess, in
order to escape from his attentions, concealed herself under the form of
a mare, when the god of the sea transformed himself into a horse to
seduce her, with which act she was so highly offended that after having
washed herself in a river and reassumed human form, she took refuge in a
cave, where she lay concealed. When famine and pestilence began to
ravage the earth, the gods made search for her everywhere, but could not
find her until Pan discovered her and apprised Jupiter of her
whereabouts. This cave was in Sicily, in which country Ceres was known
as the black Ceres, or the Erinnys, because the outrages offered her by
Neptune turned her frantic and furious. Demeter was depicted in Sicily
as clad in black, with a horse's head, holding a pigeon in one hand and
a dolphin in the other.
On the submission of Eleusis to Athens, the Mysteries became an integral
part of the Athenian religion, so that the Eleusinian Mysteries became a
Panhellenic institution, and later, under the Romans, a universal
worship, but the secret rites of initiation were well kept throughout
their history.
Eleusis was one of the twelve originally independent cities of Attica,
which Theseus is said to have united into a simple state. Leusina now
occupies the site, and has thus preserved the name of the ancient city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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