Page 19 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS AND EUPHORIAS: Of Eyes and Funnels, Of Tracks and Traces IV

Galiet & Galiet
line with Foxhall, Burkert argues that the Thesmophoria ought not be seen simply as an agricultural ritual. To bear the importance of the connection between fertility and agricultural cycles, Demeter’s grief is closely intertwined with lack of childbearing: “And she was like an ancient woman who is cut off from childbearing and the gifts of garland-loving Aphrodite, like the nurses of kings' children who deal justice, or like the house-keepers in their echoing halls.”22
Of the three critics, Burkert exclusively stresses the Thesmophoria’s origin, initiation rites (teletai), the significance of eating of the pomegranate seed by Persephone and the concept of nomos. First, Burkert reveals that according to Herodotos, the Thesmophoria were imported to Greece from Egypt by the Danaids. Second, in Mykonos, apparently strangers were admitted after initiation. Similarly, one of the mysteries is that men were not permitted to see the statues in these temples. Third, Burkert also speaks that the women at the Thesmophoria ate the pomegranate pip whose red juice is associated with blood. He views it as a re-enactment of Persephone’s eating the fruit while at Hades, implying that if a pip falls to the ground, it belongs to the dead. Fourth, Burkert brings to our attention that Demeter, in the Greek mind, is the bringer of nomos: order in marriage, civilization and life.
Whether women journey into the subterranean either to honour Persephone or to bring her back, or to encounter death or decay, or to reunite and embrace their trials and scars remains as mysterious as the Thesmophoria. Persephone may have been twice blessed: she may have found rest and solace in her Hadian abode as queen of the dead and hope and joy as Kore in her Demetrian reunion. She, like Demeter, dwells at the crossroads between light and dark,
22 West, Martin. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Hymn to Demeter. Lives of Homer. London: Harvard University Press, 2003.
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