The snake of Cychreus: Hesiod says that it was brought up by Cychreus and was driven out by Eurylochus… (Hesiod, Catalogue of Women*, Fragment 77, in Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, and Other Fragments*, Loeb Classical Library, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most.)
Zeus entered also into the bed of fruitful Demeter, who bore him Persephone of the white arms, she that Aidoneus ravished away from her mother and Zeus of the counsels granted it. (Hesiod, Theogony 912-914)
Demeter, shining among goddesses, after the embraces of the hero Iasion in the sweetness of love, brought forth Ploutos in a thrice-plowed field there in the fertile countryside of Crete, a good son, who walks over earth and the sea’s wide ridges everywhere, and he who meets him with the giving of hands between them is made a prosperous man, to whom great wealth is granted.
(Hesiod, Theogony 912-914)
Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year’s victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter’s grain. (Hesiod Works and Days 31)
But do you at any rate, always remembering my charge, work, high-born Perses, that Hunger may hate you, and venerable Demeter richly crowned may love you and fill your barn with food. (Hesiod, Works And Days, 328-331)
When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising, begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set. Forty nights and days they are hidden and appear again as the year moves round, when first you sharpen your sickle. This is the law of the plains, and of those who live near the sea, and who inhabit rich country, the glens and dingles far from the tossing sea,—strip to sow and strip to plough and strip to reap, if you wish to get in all Demeter’s fruits in due season, and that each kind may grow in its season. (Hesiod, Works and Days, 383-393)
Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter’s holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stock on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps. (Hesiod, Works and Days, 465-469)
Set your slaves to winnow Demeter’s holy grain, when strong Orion first appears, on a smooth threshing-floor in an airy place. (Hesiod, Works And Days. 597-599)
But when the Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set, then remember to plough in season: And so the completed year will fitly pass beneath the earth. (Hesiod, Works And Days, 614-617.)
Look about you very carefully and throw out Demeter’s holy grain upon the well-rolled threshing floor on the seventh of the mid-month. (Hesiod Works and Days 805-807)