However, Parker suggests that Demeter demands a ritual at Eleusis in order to recognize Demophon because she has served as his nurse. Either explanation suggests that Demeter demands ritual in order to recognize the role of the mother.
4. Explain the relevance of this myth to the development of agricultural communities and civilization.
Agricultural communities and civilization are dependent upon the cycle of death and rebirth that is characterized by the seasons. At its most basic element, this myth describes the seasons, as Demeter causes the death of the earth (winter) when her daughter is stuck in the underworld. However, it also explains death on a human level because it focuses on issues of mortality and whether humans actually want to be free from death. "A goddess had been willing to confer the supreme blessing of immortality on a human child. The child lost the gift through a mistake by his own mother; but it was a mistake that sprung out of the human mother's concern for the child, a mistake that almost any mother would necessarily have made" (Parker 1991, p.9).
5. To what extent do the 'charter' and...
The myth of Demeter and Persephone was dependent upon the location, so that the Eleusion mysteries can be explained through the myth. When looking at the cult, Demeter's focus on her nursling, whom she was not able to immortalize, was an example of the divine concern for the human condition, which helped explain the development of the cult, even though her attempts at immortalizing Demophon were unsuccessful and portrayed as a failure within the context of the poem (Parker 1991, p.10).
References
Foley, H., ed. 1993, the Homeric hymn to Demeter. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Kerenyi, C. 1991, 'The lesser mysteries and the preparations for the great mysteries' in Eleusis:
archetypal image of mother and daughter, Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp.45-66.
Parker, R. 1991, 'The hymn to Demeter and the Homeric hymns' in Greece and Rome,
xxxviii (1), pp.1-17.
