Demeter shuns the gods and goes to Eleusis, where she lives in the company of mortals. Demeter, heartbroken and upset, asks Hecate and Helios, the sole witnesses of the rape, what has happened, and Helios tells Demeter the name of Persephone’s abductor. Hades arises through a chasm in the earth and takes her, against her will, to the underworld (Figure 1). Hades abducts Persephone when she is picking flowers in a meadow in the plain of Nysa at the edge of Ocean (see Oceanus, geographical) in the company of the Oceanids (see nymphs, Artemis, and Athena). The snatching away by Hades is told in detail in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Hades raped her with Zeus’ consent ( Hes. Persephone is Demeter’s daughter by Zeus ( Hom. Hel.1307), or the cult titles Soteria ( Σώτειρα), Despoina ( Δέσποινα) and Brimo ( Βριμώ) stand out as particularly prominent. Od.11.386), whom none may name (‘arrētos,’ Eur. Eleusis 83 and 239).Īmong her epithets, venerable (‘agauē,’ Hom. In the context of the Eleusinian mysteries, the expressions god (theos) and goddess (thea) designate Hades and Persephone ( I. Kore is more usual as a formal title of the goddess in many state cults, but Persephone is also found in Athens, Cyzicus, or among the Locri Epizephyrii. The term Persephone stresses her persona as Hades’ wife, whilst as Demeter’s daughter, she is often called Kore, “the Girl.” Mother and daughter are usually named together in expressions like “the Two Goddesses” (tō theō), “the Thesmophoroi” (tō Thesmoforō) or, sporadically, “the Demeters” (Dēmēteres). The name Persephone (Homeric Persephoneia, Lyric Phersephonā), whose etymology is dark, presents variants as Persephassa or Phersephassa (Tragic), Pherrephatta, Perrephatta, or Pherrophatta, Perophatta, Persōphata (on Attic vases of the 5th century bce). In Mycenaean, the names Persephone ( Περσεφόνη), and Kore ( Κόρη), have been proposed without agreement for the lemmas pe-re- * 82 in Pylos and ko-wa in Thebes (TH Fq 126.2).
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