Sun her daughter’s fate, she suffered not the seed to grow, but kept it hidden in the ground, so that the whole race of men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not sent and fetched Proserpine from the nether world. Finally it was agreed that Proserpine should spend a third, or according to others a half,[1] of each year with Pluto underground, but should come forth in spring to dwell with her mother and the gods in the upper world. Her annual death and resurrection, that is, her annual descent into the under world and her ascension from it, appear to have been represented in her rites.[2]
With regard to the name Demeter, it has been plausibly argued by Mannhardt[3] that the first part of the word is derived from dēai, a Cretan word for “barley”;[4] and that thus Demeter means the Barley-mother or the Corn-mother; for the root of the word appears to have been applied to different kinds of grain by different branches of the Aryans, and even of the Greeks themselves.[5] As Crete appears to have been one of the most ancient seats of the worship of Demeter,[6] it is not surprising that her name should be of Cretan origin. This explanation of the name Demeter is supported by a host of analogies which the diligence of Mannhardt has collected
- ↑ A third, according to Homer, H. to Demeter, 399, and Apollodorus, i. 5, 3; a half, according to Ovid, Fasti, iv. 614; id., Metam. v. 567; Hyginus, Fab. 146.
- ↑ Schömann, Griech. Alterthümer,3 ii. 393; Preller, Griech. Mythologie,3 i. 628 sq., 644 sq., 650 sq. The evidence of the ancients on this head, though not full and definite, seems sufficient. See Diodorus, v. 4; Firmicus Maternus, cc. 7, 27; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 69; Apuleius, Met. vi. 2; Clemens Alex., Protrept. ii. §§ 12, 17.
- ↑ Mythol. Forschungen, p. 292 sqq.
- ↑ Etymol. Magmun. p. 264, 12 sq.
- ↑ O. Schrader Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte2 (Jena, 1890), pp. 409, 422; V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Uebergang aus Asien,4 p. 54. Δηαί is doubtless equivalent etymologically to ζειαί, which is often taken to be spelt, but this seems uncertain.
- ↑ Hesiod, Theog. 971; Lenormant, in Daremberg et Saglio, 1. pt. ii. p. 1029.
