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The Homeric Hymns

Hymn to Demeter

minorattestedc. 650–450 BCEGreek mythology

Thirty-three Greek hexameter hymns to the gods, composed in Homer’s dialect and meter between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE. The second and greatest, the Hymn to Demeter, is the charter myth of the Eleusinian Mysteries: the abduction of Persephone, the grieving mother’s famine, and the settlement that made the seasons.

Influence75
Antiquity67
Wisdom65
Mystery57
✦Signature powerThe WordIts verses bind, guide, and outlive the hands that wrote them.
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Voices & connections

Figures bound to The Homeric Hymns, family and rivals within the myth, and the thinkers and writers who shaped how we know them.

Persephonefeatures

Relics & objects

Sacred and cursed things that belong to the world of The Homeric Hymns.

The Apple of DiscordCursedPandora's JarCursed

Read the story

Illustrated chapters where The Homeric Hymns appears. Start reading in a click.

Illustrated storyPersephone, the Stolen SpringA girl picks a flower grown as a trap, and the earth opens. Hades takes her down to be Queen of the Dead; her mother Demeter stops the world until Olympus negotiates; and one swallowed pomegranate seed writes the terms of the seasons. The Greek descent myth — and the charter of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the ancient world’s best-kept promise about death.Begin reading →