LLT 121  Myths of Fertility Powell Chh. 10-12
 
Ch. 10. The Great Goddess and her lost beloved
 
 Demeter and Persephone (Kore)
 Hymn to Demeter : be able to summarize the basic story.
 Hades abducts the maiden
 with Zeus's consent (and lure of narcissus)
 Hecate and Helius hear
 Demeter in disguise at Eleusis, as 'Doso'
 welcomed by Celeus, Metaneira, and daughters
 as nursemaid for Demophon
 comforted by Iambe and kykeon
 Demeter bathes Demophon in fire
 spell broken by Metaneira
 Cult at Eleusis founded in penance
 Zeus persuades Hades to release Persephone two seasons for one
 doomed to return by the pomegranate
 Note: Rosetti's Proserpina, p. 238
 Interpretations:   Agricultural allegory?
 Woman's predicament Near Eastern parallels
 Ritual and Cult: Mysteries at Eleusis
 mystes = initiate and Telesterion
 Eumolpids and Kerykes
 'Greater Mysteries,' late September
 hiera to Athens [convocation and baptism]
 fifth-day procession to Eleusis 
 
Eastern parallels: Inanna and Dumuzi
 vs. Ereshkegal (=Sumerian Persephone)
 cycle of death and rebirth
 Isis and Osiris
 vs. Seth/Typhon
 triumph of Horus
 Cybele and Attis
 Nana pregnant from the pomegranate
 gives birth to Attis
 Attis castrated and resurrected
 
 Aphrodite and Adonis
 Pygmalion and Galatea
 son Paphos >> Cinyras >> Myrrha
 Adonis born from Myrrha
 dies on the boarhunt, resurrected in flower 
 
Ch. 11.  Dionysus
 
  Son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, given firey birth at Thebes
 infant Dionysus sheltered by Ino (=Leucothea)
 reared by nymphs of Nysa
 links with Cybele
 the entourage: 
 Maenads (=Bacchae) and Satyrs
 Sileni, and encounter with Midas
 Ariadne, bride of Dionysus
 opposition to the new cult: victims and martyrs
 Lycurgus in Thrace
 daughters of Minyas 
 daughters of Proetus 
 [Icarius at Athens]
 tales of power:
 captured by pirates
 
 triumphant return to Thebes
 vs. cousin Pentheus: 
  Euripides'  Bacchae
 from the excerpt in Powell, be able to give a brief plot summary
 identifying chief characters: 
 Pentheus   Cadmus Agave
 Dionysus brings Semele from the dead (=Thyone)
 
 Interpretation: Bronze-age god, recast by oriental cult
 Cult of Dionysus
 vine and thyrsus
 ekstasis and enthousiasmos
 sparagmos and omophagia
 
 Tragedy and Dionysia 
 origins in dithyramb, mystery, or funeral rite?
 first actor introduced by Thespis
 dramatic festival at Athens,
 instituted under tyranny, flourished under democracy
 
 
Ch. 12 Journey among the Dead MythNotes
 
 Hades, "the Unseen" = Roman Dis (Dives) = Pluto (Grk. Ploutos); 
 aka Orcus (boundary, confinement) 
 Soul as attenuated image 
 psyche = anima ghosts resentful of loss yearning to return (?) 
 Hermes psychompompos Anthesteria (Greek Halloween in Spring) 
 Epicurus: death of the soul 
 
Tales of katabasis (the journey below) and return (recast as necromancy for Homer’s audience)
 
  Odysseus seeking Teiresias of Thebes
 blood sacrifice for the dead to speak
 (up come "new brides and unmarried boys, soldiers slain by the spear, 
 still in armor": each as death caught them)
 Elpenor (whom they had left unburied)
 Odysseus' own mother (Anticlea)
 Teiresias tells of things to come
 Agamemnon ('trust no woman') Ajax (hating Odysseus forever)
 Achilles ('better a hireling to the poorest man alive'...) 
 the vision (old material?)
 Minos, judge among the dead
 the great sinners:
 Tityus Tantalus Sisyphus
 'phantom' of Heracles
 
 From another story, the first glimmer of paradise: fields of Elysium, where Rhadamanthys rules (as told by Proteus)
 
Orpheus and Eurydice
 Orphism, esp. death and rebirth of Dionysus
 
Plato's 'Myth of Er' (Republic 10)
 Souls before (re)birth choose their lots 
 and drink of Lethe
 
 Vergil's tale of Aeneas' Descent, in seach of father Anchises
 Aeneas guided by Sibyl of Cumae
 be able to draw a rough map of Vergil's underworld, placing the following:
 Charon and Acheron
 Cerberus
 Phlegethon, Tisiphone, and prison of the damned (aka Tartarus)
 Ixion, plus Tantalus, Sisyphus et al., including Danaids
 Elysium, vision of Roman heroes to come, and exit by Gates of Ivory