Source Verification: Demeter
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Did Zeus know Hades was going to take Persephone?
Yes. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter states plainly that Hades seized Persephone with the consent of Zeus, her own father, who gave her away without asking Demeter or Persephone herself. Demeter learns this from Helios, the sun, who sees everything that happens on earth and tells her the truth when she finally asks him directly.
Source: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1-20
How far did Demeter go to force Zeus to act?
She withheld the harvest from the entire earth, causing what the Hymn calls a most dreadful and cruel year: the ground refused to make seed sprout at all, and Demeter would have destroyed the whole human race with famine, and with it the gods' own offerings and sacrifices, if Zeus had not finally taken notice and intervened.
Source: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 305-313
Why couldn't Persephone simply return to Demeter for good?
Hades gave her pomegranate seeds to eat before she left the underworld, and eating the food of the dead was understood to bind a person to that realm. Because she had eaten it, even secretly and by Hades's own arrangement, Persephone could not be released outright, which is why Zeus's compromise splits her time between the two rather than restoring her fully to her mother.
Source: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 370-374
How much of the year does Persephone spend with each parent, according to the Hymn?
The Hymn has Persephone spend a third of the year below with Hades and the other two-thirds above with Demeter and the rest of the gods, tying the harvest cycle directly to that division: earth grows lush and abundant while she is present, and Demeter withholds growth during the season Persephone is away.
Source: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 398-403
What did Demeter give humanity once her daughter returned?
She made the fertile land burst into leaf and flower again, and taught her rites to the local kings of Eleusis, founding the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Hymn calls the mysteries a thing so awful that no one may describe them, but promises that whoever has witnessed them is fortunate, while whoever dies uninitiated has no share of the same good things in the afterlife.
Source: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 470-482
Sources
- Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1-20
- Homeric Hymn to Demeter 305-313
- Homeric Hymn to Demeter 470-482
- Hesiod, Theogony
- Helene P. Foley, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (1994)
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)