That’s a long voyage. First you’ll come to a vast lake, quite bottomless.
Then how will I cross it? An ancient mariner will ferry you across in a little boat no bigger than this, for a fare of two obols. Wow, what power those two obols have everywhere! How did they make their way down there? Theseus brought them. After that, you’ll see an infinity of serpents and beasts most frightful.
Don’t try to shock or scare me off; you’ll not deter me. Then you’ll see lots of mud and ever flowing shit; in it lies anyone who ever wronged a stranger, or…
…and next a breath of pipes will waft about you, and there’ll be brilliant sunlight, just like our, and myrtyl groves, happy bands of men and women, and a great clapping of hands And who are those people?
The initiates. (Euripides. The Frogs)
Teiresias: … Two things there are, young prince, that hold first rank among men, the goddess Demeter, that is, the earth, call her which name you please; she it is that feeds men with solid food….(Euripides. The Bacchantes 274)
Through wooded glen, o’er torrent’s flood, and ocean’s booming waves rushed the mountain goddess, mother of the gods, in frantic haste, once long ago, yearning for her daughter lost, whose name men dare not utter; loudly rattled the Bacchic castanets in shrill accord, what time those maidens, swift as whirlwinds, sped forth with the goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures in quest of her that was ravished from the circling choir of virgins; here was Artemis with her
bow, And there the grim-eyed goddess, sheathed in mail, and spear in hand. But Zeus looked down from his throne in heaven, and turned the issue overwhither. Soon as the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, in seeking her daughter stolen so subtly as to baffle all pursuit, she crossed the snow-capped heights of Ida’s nymphs; and in anguish cast her down amongst the rock and brushwood deep in snow; and, denying to man all increase to his tillage from those barren fields, she wasted the human race; nor would she let the leafy tendrils yield luxuriant fodder for the cattle wherefore many a beast lay dying; no sacrifice was offered to the gods and on the altars were no cake to burn; yea, and she made the dew-fed founts of crystal water to cease their flow, in her insatiate sorrow for her child. But when for god and tribes of men alike she made an end to festal cheer, Zeus spoke out, seeking to smooth the mother’s moody soul, “Ye stately Graces, go banish from Demeter’s angry heart the grief her wanderings bring upon her for her child, and go, ye Muses too, with tuneful choir.” Thereon did Cypris, fairest of the blessed gods, first catch up the crashing cymbals, native to that land, and the drum with tight-stretched skin and then Demeter smiled, and in her hand did take the deep-toned flute, well pleased with its loud note.
(Euripides, Helen 1303-1361)
Heracles: … After my return at length from the soulless den of Hades and the maiden queen of hell, I will not neglect to greet first of all the gods beneath my roof.
Amphitryon: Why, did you in very deed go to the house of Hades, my son?
Heracles: Aye, and brought to the light that three-headed monster.
Amphitryon: Did you worst him fight, or receive him from the goddess?
Heracles: In fair fight; for I had been lucky enough to witness the rites of the initiated.
Amphitryon: Is the monster really lodged in the house of Eurystheus?
Heracles: The grove of Demeter and the city of Hermione are his prison.
(Euripides, Herakles Mad, 602-614)
Chorus: Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness,… I blush for that god of song, if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus’ fair springs, a sleepless rotary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus, the moon, and Nereus’ fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o’er the sea and the eternal rivers’ tides, join the dance in honor of the maiden with the
crown of gold And her majestic mother; (Euripides, Ion, 1048-1049, 1079-1086)
Iphigenia: My purpose is to cleanse them first by purification.
Thoas: In fresh spring water or salt sea-spray?
Iphigenia: The sea washes away from man all that is ill.
Thoas: True, they would then be holier victims for the goddess. (Euripides, Iphigenia Among
the Tauri 1191-1194)
O Demeter, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and you servants of the goddess who attend her sanctuary, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus…. Now it chanced, that I had left my house and come to offer sacrifice on behalf of the earth’s crop at this shrine, where first the fruitful corn showed its bristling shocks above the soil. And here at the holy altar of the twain goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, I wait, holding these sprays of foliage, a bond that binds not, in compassion for these childless mothers, hoary with age, and from reverence for the sacred fillets. (Euripides. The Suppliants 1-4, 30-35)
