Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Translated by Gregory Nagy

1 I begin to sing of Demeter, the holy goddess with the beautiful hair.

And her daughter [Persephone] too. The one with the delicate ankles, whom Hadês[1]

seized. She was given away by Zeus, the loud-thunderer, the one who sees far and wide.

Demeter did not take part in this, she of the golden double-axe, she who glories in the harvest.

5 She [Persephone] was having a good time, along with the daughters of Okeanos, who wear their girdles slung low.

She was picking flowers: roses, crocus, and beautiful violets.

Up and down the soft meadow. Iris blossoms too she picked, and hyacinth.

And the narcissus, which was grown as a lure for the flower-faced girl

by Gaia [Earth]. All according to the plans of Zeus. She [Gaia] was doing a favor for the one who receives many guests [Hadês].

10 It [the narcissus] was a wondrous thing in its splendor. To look at it gives a sense of holy awe

to the immortal gods as well as mortal humans.

It has a hundred heads growing from the root up.

Its sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies up above.

And the earth below smiled back in all its radiance. So too the churning mass of the salty sea.

15 She [Persephone] was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands

to take hold of the pretty plaything.[2] And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her.

It happened on the Plain of Nysa. There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge.

He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. The son of Kronos. The one known by many names.

He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot,

20 And drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice,

calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best.

But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals,

heard her voice. Not even the olive trees which bear their splendid harvest.

Except for the daughter of Persaios, the one who keeps in mind the vigor of nature.

25 She heard it from her cave. She is Hekatê, with the splendid headband.

And the Lord Helios [Sun] heard it too, the magnificent son of Hyperion.

They heard the daughter calling upon her father, the son of Kronos.

But he, all by himself,

was seated far apart from the gods, inside a temple, the precinct of many prayers.

He was receiving beautiful sacrificial rites from mortal humans.

30 She was being taken, against her will, at the behest of Zeus,

by her father’s brother, the one who makes many sêmata, the one who receives many guests,

the son of Kronos, the one with many names. On the chariot drawn by immortal horses.

So long as the earth and the star-filled sky

were still within the goddess’s [Persephone’s] view, as also the fish-swarming sea [pontos], with its strong currents,

35 as also the rays of the sun, she still had hope that she would yet see

her dear mother and that special group, the immortal gods.

For that long a time her great noos was soothed by hope, distressed as she was.

The peaks of mountains resounded, as did the depths of the sea [pontos],

with her immortal voice. And the Lady Mother [Demeter] heard her.

40 And a sharp akhos seized her heart. The headband on her hair

she tore off with her own immortal hands

and threw a dark cloak over her shoulders.

She sped off like a bird, soaring over land and sea,

looking and looking. But no one was willing to tell her the truth [etêtuma],

45 not one of the gods, not one of the mortal humans,

not one of the birds, messengers of the truth [etêtuma].

Thereafter, for nine days did the Lady Demeter

wander all over the earth, holding torches ablaze in her hands.

Not once did she take of ambrosia and nectar, sweet to drink,

50 in her grief, nor did she bathe her skin in water.

But when the tenth bright dawn came upon her,

Hekatê came to her, holding a light ablaze in her hands.

She came with a message, and she spoke up, saying to her:

“Lady Demeter, bringer of hôrai, giver of splendid gifts,

55 which one of the gods who dwell in the sky or which one of mortal humans

seized Persephone and brought grief to your philos thûmos?

I heard the sounds, but I did not see with my eyes

who it was. So I quickly came to tell you everything, without error.”

So spoke Hekatê. But she was not answered

60 by the daughter [Demeter] of Rhea with the beautiful hair. Instead, she [Demeter] joined her [Hekatê] and quickly

set out with her, holding torches ablaze in her hands.

They came to Hêlios, the seeing-eye of gods and men.

They stood in front of his chariot-team, and the resplendent goddess asked this question:

“Helios! Show me respect [aidôs], god to goddess, if ever

65 I have pleased your heart and thûmos in word or deed.

It is about the girl born to me, a sweet young seedling, renowned for her beauty,

whose piercing cry I heard resounding through the boundless aether,

as if she were being forced, though I did not see it with my eyes.

I turn to you as one who ranges over all the earth and sea [pontos]

70 as you look down from the bright aether with your sunbeams:

tell me without error whether you have by any chance seen my philon child,

and who has taken her away from me by force, against her will,

and then gone away? Tell me which one of the gods or mortal humans did it.”

So she spoke. And the son of Hyperion answered her with these words:

75 “Daughter of Rhea with the beautiful hair, Queen Demeter!

You shall know the answer, for I greatly respect you and feel sorry for you

as you grieve over your child, the one with the delicate ankles. No one else

among all the immortals is responsible [aitios] except the cloud-gatherer Zeus himself,

who gave her to Hadês as his beautiful wife.

So he gave her to his own brother. And he [Hadês], heading for the misty realms of darkness,

80 seized her as he drove his chariot and as she screamed out loud.

But I urge you, goddess: stop your loud cry of lamentation: you should not

have an anger without bounds, all in vain. It is not unseemly

to have, of all the immortals, such a son-in-law as Hadês, the one who makes many sêmata.

85 He is the brother [of Zeus], whose seed is from the same place. And as for tîmê,

he has his share, going back to the very beginning, when the three-way division of inheritance was made.[3]

He dwells with those whose king he was destined by lot to be.”[4]

So saying, he shouted to his horses, and they responded to his command

as they swiftly drew the speeding chariot, like long-winged birds.

90 And she [Demeter] was visited by grief [akhos] that was even more terrible than before: it makes you think of the Hound of Hadês.

In her anger at the one who is known for his dark clouds, the son of Kronos,

she shunned the company of gods and lofty Olympus.

She went away, visiting the cities of humans, with all their fertile landholdings,

shading over her appearance, for a long time. And not one of men,

95 looking at her, could recognize her. Not one of women, either, who are accustomed to wear their girdles low-slung.[5]

Until, one day, she came to the house of bright-minded Keleos,

who was at that time ruler of Eleusis, fragrant with incense.[6]

She sat down near the road, sad in her philon heart,

at the well called Parthenion [the Virgin’s Place], where the people of the polis[7] used to draw water.

100 She sat in the shade, under the thick growth of an olive tree,

looking like an old woman who had lived through many years and who is

deprived of giving childbirth and of the gifts of Aphrodite, lover of garlands in the hair.

She was like those nursemaids who belong to kings, administrators of themistes,

and who are guardians of children in echoing palaces.

105 She was seen by the daughters of Keleos, son of Eleusinos,

who were coming to get water, easy to draw [from the well], in order to carry it

in bronze water-jars to the phila home of their father.

There were four of them, looking like goddesses with their bloom of adolescence:

Kallidikê, Kleisidikê, and lovely Dêmô.

110 And then there was Kallithoê, who was the eldest of them all.

They did not recognize her [Demeter]. Gods are hard for mortals to see.

They [the daughters] stood near her and spoke these winged words:

“Who are you, and where are you from, old woman, old among old humans?

Why has your path taken you far away from the polis? Why have you not drawn near to the palace?

115 There, throughout the shaded chambers, are women

who are as old as you are, and younger ones too,

who would welcome you in word and in deed.”

So she spoke.[8] And the Lady Goddess spoke with the following words:

“Phila children! Whoever women you are among the female kind of humans,

120 I wish you kharis [‘I wish you pleasure and happiness from our relationship, starting now’]. I shall tell you. It is not unseemly,

since you ask, for me to tell you alêthea.

Dôsô[9] is my name. It was given to me by my honored mother.

But that was then. I am from Crete, having traveled over the wide stretches of sea

against my will. Without my consent, by biâ, by duress,

125 I was abducted by pirates. After a while,

sailing with their swift ship, they landed at the harbor of Thorikos. There the ship was boarded by women

of the mainland, many of them. They [the pirates]

started preparing dinner next to the prow of the beached ship.

But my thûmos did not yearn for food, that delight of the mind.

130 I stole away and set out to travel over the dark earth of the mainland, fleeing my arrogant captors. This way, I stopped them

from drawing any benefit from my worth without having paid the price.

That is how I got here, in the course of all my wanderings. And I do not know

what this land is and who live here.

135 But I pray to all the gods who abide on Olympus that you be granted

vigorous husbands and that you be able to bear children,

in accordance with the wishes of your parents. As for me, young girls, take pity.

To be honest about it, what I want is for you to name for me a house to go to, the house of someone, man or woman, who has phila children to be taken care of.[10]

I want to work for them,

140 honestly. The kind of work that is cut out for a female who has outlived others her own age.

I could take some newborn baby in my arms,

and nourish him well. I could watch over his house.

I would make his bed in the inner recesses of well-built chambers,

the royal bed. And I could see to a woman’s tasks.”

145 So spoke the goddess. And she was answered straightaway by the unwed maiden,

Kallidikê, the most beautiful of the daughters of Keleos:

“Old Mother, we humans endure the gifts the gods give us, even when we are grieving over what has to be.[11]

They [the gods] are, after all, far better than we are.

What I now say will be clear advice, and I will name for you

150 the men who have the great control, divinely given, of tîmê here:

the men who stand at the forefront of the dêmos and who protect the citadel of the polis

with their wise counsel and their straight dikai.

And then there are the wives too: of sound-minded Triptolemos, of Dioklos,

of Polyxenos, of faultless Eumolpos as well,

155 of Dolikhos, and of our splendid father [Keleos].

The wives of all of these manage the palace.[12]

Of these women, not a single one of them, when they first look at you,

would deprive you of tîmê, the way you look, and turn you away from the palace.

Rather, they will receive you. For, right now, you look like the gods.

160 If you wish, wait for us, while we go to the palace of our father

and tell our mother, Metaneira with the low-slung girdle,

all these things from beginning to end, in the hope that she will tell you

to come to our house and not to seek out the houses of others.[13]

She has a treasured son, growing up in the well-built palace.

165 He was born late, after many a prayer for the birth of a son: a great joy to his parents.

If you nourish him to grow till he reaches the crossing-point of life, coming of age,

I can predict that you will be the envy of any woman who lays eyes on you.

That is how much compensation she [Metaneira] would give you in return for raising him.”

So she [Kallidikê] spoke. And she [Demeter] nodded her assent. So they,

170 filling their splendid jars with water, carried it off, looking magnificent.

Swiftly they came to the great palace of their father, and quickly they told their mother

what they saw and heard.[14] And she told them

quickly to go and invite her [Demeter] for whatever wages, no limits,

and they, much as deer or heifers in the hôrâ of spring

175 prance along the meadow, satiating their dispositions as they graze on the grass,

so also they, hitching up the folds of their lovely dresses,

dashed along the rutted roadway, their hair flowing

over their shoulders, looking like crocus blossoms.

They found the illustrious goddess sitting near the road, just the way

180 they had left her. Then they led her to the phila palace of their father.

She was walking behind them, sad in her philon heart.

She was wearing a veil on her head, and a long dark robe [peplos]

trailed around the delicate feet of the goddess.[15]

Straightaway they came to the palace of sky-nurtured[16] Keleos.

185 They went through the hall, heading for the place where their mistress, their mother,

was sitting near the threshold of a well-built chamber,

holding in her lap her son, a young seedling. And they ran over

to her side. She [Demeter] in the meantime went over to the threshold and stood on it, with feet firmly planted, and her head

reached all the way to the ceiling. And she filled the whole indoors with a divine light.

190 She [Metaneira] was seized by a sense of aidôs, by a holy wonder, by a blanching fear.

She [Metaneira] yielded to her [Demeter] the chair on which she was sitting, and she told her to sit down.

But Demeter, the bringer of hôrai, the giver of splendid gifts,

refused to sit down on the splendid chair,

but she stood there silent, with her beautiful eyes downcast,

195 until Iambê, the one who knows what is worth caring about [kednon] and what is not, set down for her

a well-built stool, on top of which she threw a splendid fleece.[17]

On this she [Demeter] sat down, holding with her hands a veil before her face.

For a long time she sat on the stool, without uttering a sound, in her sadness.

And she made no approach, either by word or by gesture, to anyone.

200 Unsmiling, not partaking of food or drink,

she sat there, wasting away with yearning for her daughter with the low-slung girdle,

until Iambê,[18] the one who knows what is dear and what is not, started making fun.

Making many jokes, she turned the Holy Lady’s disposition in another direction,

making her smile and laugh and have a merry thûmos.

205 Ever since, she [Iambê] has been pleasing her [Demeter] with the sacred rites.

Then Metaneira offered her [Demeter] a cup, having filled it with honey-sweet wine.

But she refused, saying that it was divinely ordained that she not

drink red wine. Then she [Demeter] ordered her [Metaneira] to mix some barley and water

with delicate pennyroyal, and to give her [Demeter] that potion to drink.

210 So she [Metaneira] made the kukeôn[19] and offered it to the goddess, just as she had ordered.

The Lady known far and wide as Dêô[20] accepted it, for the sake of the hosia.[21]

Then well-girded Metaneira spoke up in their midst:

“Woman, I wish you kharis [‘I wish you pleasure and happiness from our relationship, starting now’]. I speak this way because I think you are descended not from base parents

but from noble ones. You have the look of aidôs in your eyes,

215 and the look of kharis, just as if you were descended from kings, who uphold the themistes.

We humans endure the gifts the gods give us, even when we are grieving over what has to be.

The yoke has been placed on our neck.

But now that you have come here, there will be as many things that they give to you as they give to me.

Take this little boy of mine and nourish him. He is late-born, and it was beyond my expectations

220 that the immortals could have given him to me. I prayed many times to have him.

If you nourish him to grow till he reaches the crossing-point of life, coming of age,

I can predict that you will be the envy of any woman who lays eyes on you.

That is how much compensation I [Metaneira] would give you in return for raising him.”

Then Demeter, with the beautiful garlands in her hair, addressed her:

225 “Woman, I wish you kharis back, and then some. May the gods give you good things.

With positive intentions, I will take your little boy as you tell me to.

I will nourish him, and I do not expect that, through the inadvertence of her nursemaid,

he would perish from a pestilence or from the Undercutter.[22]

I know an antidote[23] that is far more powerful than the Woodcutter;[24]

230 I know a genuine remedy for the painful pestilence.”

Having so spoken, she took the child to her fragrant bosom,

in her immortal hands. And the mother [Metaneira] rejoiced in her mind.

And thus it came to pass that the splendid son of bright-minded Keleos,

Dêmophôn,[25] who was born to well-girded Metaneira,

235 was nourished in the palace, and he grew up like a daimôn,

not eating grain, not sucking from the breast. But Demeter

used to anoint him with ambrosia, as if he had been born of the goddess,

and she would breathe down her sweet breath on him as she held him to her bosom.

At nights she would conceal him within the menos of fire, as if he were a smoldering log,

240 and his philoi parents were kept unaware. But they marveled

at how full in bloom he came to be, and to look at him was like looking at the gods.[26]

Now Demeter would have made him ageless and immortal

if it had not been for the heedlessness of well-girded Metaneira,

who went spying one night, leaving her own fragrant bedchamber,

245 and caught sight of it [what Demeter was doing]. She let out a shriek and struck her two thighs,[27]

afraid for her child. She had made a big mistake in her thûmos.

Weeping, she spoke these winged words:

“My child! Demophon! The stranger, this woman, is making you disappear in a mass of flames!

This is making me weep in lamentation [goos]. This is giving me baneful anguish!”

250 So she spoke, weeping. And the resplendent goddess heard her.

Demeter, she of the beautiful garlands in the hair, became angry at her
[Metaneira].

She [Demeter] took her [Metaneira’s] philos little boy, who had been born to her mother in the palace, beyond her expectations,

—she took him in her immortal hands and put him down on the floor, away from her.[28]

She had taken him out of the fire, very angry in her thûmos,

255 and straightaway she spoke to well-girded Metaneira:

“Ignorant humans! Heedless, unable to recognize in advance

the difference between future good fortune [aisa] and future bad.

In your heedlessness, you have made a big mistake, a mistake without remedy.

I swear by the Styx,[29] the witness of oaths that gods make, as I say this:

260 immortal and ageless for all days

would I have made your philos little boy, and I would have given him tîmê that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos].[30]

But now there is no way for him to avoid death and doom.[31]

Still, he will have a tîmê that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos], for all time, because he had once sat

on my knees and slept in my arms.

265 At the right hôrâ, every year,

the sons of the Eleusinians will have a war, a terrible battle

among each other. They will do so for all days to come.[32]

I am Demeter, the holder of tîmai. I am the greatest

boon and joy for immortals and mortals alike.

270 But come! Let a great temple, with a great altar at its base,

be built by the entire dêmos. Make it at the foot of the acropolis and its steep walls.

Make it loom over the well of Kallikhoron,[33] on a prominent hill.

And I will myself instruct you in the sacred rites so that, in the future,

you may perform the rituals in the proper way and thus be pleasing to my noos.”

275 So saying, the goddess changed her size[34] and appearance,

shedding her old age, and she was totally enveloped in beauty.

And a lovely fragrance wafted from her perfumed robes.

The radiance of her immortal complexion

shone forth from the goddess. Her blond hair streamed down her shoulder.

280 The well-built palace was filled with light, as if from a flash of lightning.

She went out of the palace, and straightaway her [Metaneira’s] knees buckled.

For a long time she [Metaneira] was speechless. She did not even think of

her treasured little boy, to pick him up from the floor.

But his sisters heard his plaintive wailing,

285 and they quickly ran downstairs from their well-cushioned bedrooms. One of them

picked up the child in her arms, clasping him to her bosom.

Another one rekindled the fire. Still another one rushed, with her delicate feet,

to prop up her mother as she was staggering out of the fragrant room.

They all bunched around the little boy, washing him as he gasped and spluttered.

290 They all kept hugging him, but his thûmos could not be comforted.

He was now being held by nursemaids who were far inferior.

All night they prayed to the illustrious goddess,

trembling with fear. And when the bright dawn came,

they told Keleos, who rules far and wide, exactly what happened,

295 and what the goddess Demeter, the one with the beautiful garlands in the hair, instructed them to do.

Then he [Keleos] assembled the masses of the people, from this end of the public place to the other,

and he gave out the order to build, for Demeter with the beautiful hair, a splendid temple,

and an altar too, on top of the prominent hill.

And they obeyed straightaway, hearing his voice.

300 They built it as he ordered. And the temple grew bigger and bigger, taking shape through the dispensation of the daimôn.[35]

When the people had finished their work and paused from their labor,

they all went home. But blond-haired Demeter

sat down and stayed there [in the temple], shunning the company of all the blessed ones [the gods].

She was wasting away with yearning for her daughter with the low-slung girdle.

305 She made that year the most terrible one for mortals, all over the Earth, the nurturer of many.

It was so terrible, it makes you think of the Hound of Hadês. The Earth did not send up

any seed. Demeter, she with the beautiful garlands in her hair, kept them [the seeds] covered underground..

Many a curved plough was dragged along the fields by many an ox—all in vain.

Many a bright grain of wheat fell into the earth—all for naught.

310 At this moment, she [Demeter] could have destroyed the entire race of meropes[36] humans

with harsh hunger, thus depriving of their tîmê

the dwellers of the Olympian abodes—[the tîmê of] sacrificial portions of meat for eating or for burning,[37]

if Zeus had not noticed with his noos, taking note in his thûmos.

First, he sent Iris, with the golden wings, to summon

315 Demeter with the splendid hair, with a beauty that is much loved.

That is what he told her to do. And she obeyed Zeus, the one with the dark clouds, the son of Kronos,

and she ran the space between sky and earth quickly with her feet.[38]

She arrived at the city of Eleusis, fragrant with incense,

and she found in the temple Demeter, the one with the dark robe.

320 Addressing her, she spoke winged words:

“Demeter! Zeus, the one who has unwilting [a-phthi-ta] knowledge, summons you

to come to that special group, the company of the immortal gods.

So then, come! May what my words say, which come from Zeus, not fail to be turned into action that is completed.”

So she spoke, making an entreaty. But her [Demeter’s] thûmos was not persuaded.

325 After that, the Father sent out all the other blessed and immortal gods.

They came one by one,

they kept calling out to her, offering many beautiful gifts,

all sorts of tîmai that she could choose for herself if she joined the company of the immortal gods.

But no one could persuade her in her thinking or in her intention [noêma],

330 angry as she was in her thûmos, and she harshly said no to their words.