CCIV 110 WOMEN IN ANCIENT GREECE
FALL 1997
ILLUSTRATIONS AND STUDY QUESTIONS

HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER


This course is a discussion seminar. Thus, the reading assignments for the course are relatively modest. Students are expected to spend a significant proportion of their class preparation time reviewing the assigned reading, thinking about it, checking out the material on the Web Sites for the assigned day, and pondering issues raised by the reading and the background material. The following illustrations and questions are designed to help you get started.
Illustrations: Most of the illustrations present a slightly different version of the myth or story than the one that you will have encountered in the reading, and they are intended to help you think "beyond the text": What happened that we aren't told about? What are some of the questions left open by the reading? What kinds of things would you like to know that the text doesn't tell you?
Study Questions: The questions, like the illustrations, are to help you get started. They raise a few of the issues that we will want to discuss in class, but are not intended to limit your thinking. Unlike the illustrations, the study questions are tied closely to the assigned texts. They are designed to help you think "inside the text" about issues that need analysis, explanation, or expansion; as you reflect on them, try to come up with ideas of your own about issues you would like to bring up in class for discussion.

March 6
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter

A wall painting from a recently discovered tomb in Macedonia (Verginia 350 bce), depicting the Rape of Persephone. At the lower right-hand side of the painting, one of her companion nymphs cowers under her cloak as the chariot rushes away. (To see a larger version, click on the image.) Follow this link to see a black-and-white version on which Persephone's companion is more clearly visible. And the composition of the scene as a whole is clearer in this representation of the wall painting on the University of Haifa site. Compare the same scene as depicted on two terracotta plaques of the early fifth century.

What do you make of the differences in these representations of the rape of Persephone? Which of them seems to reflect best the story as it is told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter? (From Taplin, Greek Fire [ ]; black and white version from Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece [London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991], page 96, fig.121; terracotta plaques from Kerenyi, Eleusis [ ] and Carratelli, ed., The Western Greeks [Venice: Bompiani, 1996], page 391, Cat. 166/I.)

  • Who are the two divinities upon whom Demeter calls for aid in her search for Persephone? To what generation and to which part of the Theogony do they belong? What is the significance of the help which each of them is or is not able to provide to Demeter? Reflect also on the fact that the nymph in the illustration on the Study Questions page is identified as Clymene. Who is she in the Theogony and what is the significance of the identification?
  • What is the story that the disguised Demeter tells the daughters of Keleos about who she is? What relationship does this story bear to Demeter's actual experiences as related in the hymn? Compare Demeter's lying-tale with the one that Odysseus tells Penelope in the Odyssey; compare also the nature of the disguises that both assume: what is the function of these disguises in their respective poems?
  • What kind of care does Demeter give to the son of Metaneira? Is she a good nurse to him? What is the significance of the "treatment" that she attempts to apply to him?

March 8
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Attic red figure skyphos of the late archaic period (490-480 bce) depicting the departure of Triptolemus to disseminate the art of agriculture. Triptolemus sits on a wheeled throne with wings, which is decorated with a bearded snake; he holds stalks of grain in his left hand and a drinking-cup in the right one. Persephone stands before him holding a torch in one hand and a vessel from which she is about to pour wine into Triptolemus' drinking-cup. Behind Persephone is the nymph Eleusis. Behind Triptolemus stands Demeter holding a torch and stalks of grain. (To see a larger view, click on the photo.) To see a detail of Demeter, follow this link. To see a color representation of the vase on Perseus, follow this link. How well does this representation of Demeter, Triptolemus and Persephone accord with the depiction of Triptolemus at the end of the hymn? What are the major similarities and differences? (From Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece [London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991], page 50, fig.41; see also Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases of the Archaic Period [London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995], fig. 309; detail from Rasmussen & Spivey, ed., Looking at Greek Vases [Cambridge: Cambride University Press, 1991], page 107, fig. 42)

  • How does the representation of Demeter in the second section (lines 270-309) of the middle part of the hymn differ from that in the first part (lines 91-269)? What do you see as the significance of that difference?
  • At the end of the hymn Demeter is reconciled with Zeus and returns to Olympus (lines 483-86). Who or what is instrumental in effecting that return? Who or what is not instrumental in it? Why do you think Demeter agrees to be reconciled with Zeus?
  • What features of the Eleusinian Mysteries appear in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter? What features of the Thesmophoria appear there? What do you see as the major differences between the two sets of rituals as they relate to the topic of women in ancient Greece?



Last revised February 6, 2000