Demeter, Persephone, and the Afterlife

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Demeter, Persephone, and the Afterlife

• Wu Shiyu

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• Zeus (Jupiter) Hera (Juno)
• Poseidon (Neptune) Demeter(Ceres)
• Apollo Athena (Minerva)
• Artemis (Diana) Hestia(Vesta)
• Ares (Mars) Aphrodite (Venus)
• Hephaestus (Vulcan) Hermes (Mercury)
• Hades

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The Universe
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• Lord of the Underworld
• Lived apart
• The House of Hades (Tartaros)
• The gloomy land of the dead
• The River of Styx
• Hermes (guide), Charon (Ferryman)
• Shadow, witless (Homeric epic)
• Isle of the Blessed

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Hades

• Hades seldom leaves Tartaros
• Hades seizes Persephone

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Persephone

• The daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess
  Demeter (P.19)

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Olympians Demeter (???? )

• The goddess of
• Grain and agriculture
• Video

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Daughter

• Zeus and Demeter mated once and produced a
  daughter
• Persephone

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Persephones Abduction

• Hades seizes Persephone picking flowers in a
  field
• Hades takes her down to the Tartaros with him to
  be his bride.
• With Zeuss permission, Hades goes out of the
  Underworld
• Video (Hades)

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Famine by Demeter

• Sad
• Not know what happened to her daughter
• Wanders, looking for
• Causing famine
• No grain grow
• Humanity death (starve)

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• Zeus order Hades
• Return Persephone permanently
• Persephone ate a seed of pomegranate
• Cant leave Tartaros permanently

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• One-third of the year in Hades
• Two-thirds of the year with her mother

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Implications

• Demeters search for Persephone tells us
• 1.Actual Greek marriage practices (contract)
• 2. Persephone marries her own uncle
• 3. Marriage in Athens was patrilocal.
• 4. Human experience of death and separation.
  Olympians cant or dont go to Tartaros (Hermes,
  Hades)
• (God of the sun), Demeter like a human mother
• Zeus not pitied for man (gods attitude to
  humans).

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Demeter at Eleusis

• Demeter visits Eleusis, near Athens
• Disguised as an old woman
• Four daughters of Metaneira
• Late born and desired baby bro
• Demeter, nanny the baby brother
• Demophoon
• Cherished son
• Great gifts and great honor

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• Demeter make him immortal
• Anointing, Fireplace, night
• Ambrosia (burning)
• Metaneira observes, horrified
• Crazed old woman
• Burning her baby
• Demeter angry
• Tosses on ground
• A bargain with zeus

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• A window into the nature of the gods
• First, using Demophoon substitute (why a boy?).
• Second, immortalize not work. fixed.
• Third, Lord of All, Receiver of all, a
  balance
• Fourth, gods unconcern with human emotions

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• Demeter says to the mother

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Freudian Way A
Wish-fulfillment fantasy

• Could unmarry their daughter
• Gets Persephone back for two-thirds of the year
• All human beings wish death could be reversed.
• Persephone comes back from the land of the dead
  (death is reversed)

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The Afterlife

• In surviving Greek literature, views of the
  afterlife are considered less pleasant.
• Odyssey (Homer) place of dim, shadowy existence,
  much less desirable
• Ghost (eidolon) image (not a person but an
  image) a shadowy image
• Different from Christian or Islamic view
• Psyche (soul) breadth, visibly leaves the body
  at death
• Odyssey Witless, now knowing or recognizing
  themselves (blood)

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• No sense if you were an evil person in this
  life, you are going to be punished in Tartaros.
• A few wrongdoers punished in Tartaros.
• The story of Tantalos.

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The story of Tantalos
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The story of Tantalos
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The story of Tantalos
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The story of Tantalos
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The story of Tantalos

• Tantalos not believe
• Invited god to a feast
• Cooked his own son
• God recognized
• Demeter ate a shoulder
• Punishment in the underworld
• Neck (water, fruit)
• Eternally hungry
• Tantalize someone

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Other sinners

• Titaios tried to rape Leto
• Sisyphus (430)

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A Most Famous story on Afterlife

• Orpheus, greatest poet
• His poetry, singing, beatiful
• Charm animals, stone, trees

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??????(orpheus)

• ???apollo,??????
• ???Eurydice

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Orpheus and Eurydice

• Eurydice died in the wedding
• Orpheus journeyed to Underworld
• Lyre, poetry, sang so beautifully
• Hades and Persephone agreed
• Not look back
• Looked back
• Eurydice faded back into Tartaros
• Really dead
• Orphism (Orpheus teaching)

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Greek view

• Life in this world is what counts and is
  desirable, and life as a disincarnated spirit is
  seen as only as a very poor substitute for life
  in the world.
• This life is the only life worth having, but it
  is short, and what comes after it is less
  valuable than this life itself.

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• ??????,?????????????

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????

• 1.???Hades?Persephone???Tartaros????????????????
• 2.??????????????,???????????????
• 3.????????????PPT,???????

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Hermes

• (shunned) boundary
• A god of boundaries and of exchange

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Charon

• A formidable old man
• Ugly, squalid
• Ensure qualified
• Into chains
• Heracles
• Heracles, Theseus, Orpheus

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The World of Hades
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