How The Power Struggle In Homeric Hymn To Demeter

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It is in The Homeric Hymn to Demeter that one can see that there are constant struggles on Olympus. It seems that the gods are always in some sort of power struggle and one of the largest struggles are between the gods and the goddesses. This power struggle is for control over immortality, and the power to also control life and death. It is when Zeus, “the father of gods and men,” loses his control of life, death, and ultimately immortality to Demeter, that he reassesses his decisions (Harris and Platzner, 55.) In the loss of this control Zeus makes concessions and reassigns powers, so that he can regain ultimate power over life, death, and immortality, but it is a rouse because Zeus’ power is superseded by the goddess, and in this case, …show more content…

When turning to The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, it is seen that Demeter is in search of her daughter Persephone, whom she heard screaming, but is unable to find. It is only when Hecate approached Demeter on the tenth day to inform her that Zeus ordered the kidnapping of Persephone to be the bride of Hades in the underworld (Harris and Platzner, 138.) Demeter, in her grief, abandons Olympus and the other gods and goddesses in anger, so that she may sojourn in the countryside to mourn the loss of her daughter (Harris and Platzner, 138.) While Demeter is sojourning, she is offered a position as a nurse in the home of Keleos, in which she revealed herself as more than mortal when “Demeter trod upon the threshold, and her head reached the roof-beam, and she filled the doorway with divine radiance.” (Harris and Platzner, 139.) This revelation of her divinity accounts for her anger towards the mother that saw her place the child into the fire so the he would become immortal (Harris and Platzner, 140-141.) It is in Demeter’s act of placing the child in the fire to make him immortal, that shows she has the control of issuing immortality to the mortal being. Reflecting back on the snake, it is clear that the fire represents a rebirth and Demeter is in control of this rebirth into immortality. In a world of the gods, where Gaea’s matriarchy was …show more content…

118.) Zeus summonses Demeter numerous times with no response, and it is only when Zeus makes provisions for Persephone’s return to stay with Demeter that she responds to Zeus (Harris and Platzner, 141-142.) In Zeus’ fear of losing the mortals to starvation and knowing that Demeter was on a rampage that might not end with the destruction of humanity, he changes his mind on his orders about Persephone to bring Demeter’s rage to an end. As Persephone was leaving the underworld, Hades forces her to eat, which ties her forever to the underworld, but upon her return, she tells Demeter what had happened and that the gods were present during the event (Harris and Platzner, 143.) At this information Zeus again make

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