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Thesmophoria was a women’s festival in honor of Demeter and Persephone. The 13th day of the month of Pyanepsion (October) was the third day of the festival, called the Day of Fair Offspring, and it began at nightfall on the previous day. Once it was fully dark, women called Antletriai descended into caves. The Antletriai had abstained from sex for three days, and they went into the caves clapping to scare away snakes. They brought up the putrid remains from the sacrifice at the Skira months earlier, placing them on the altars to Demeter and Persephone. The other women took home portions of this material to sow with their winter wheat, to enhance the fertility of their fields and nourish the soil. Named Kalligenia (fair offspring) and linked to Demeter’s fertility, the day involved a feast of pomegranates and pork, with offerings to the Gods of cakes shaped like genitals. Virgins did not attend this festival, which likely included rituals or blessings for personal fertility. The rite celebrated the agricultural power of death to bring life, recognizing the fertilizing cycle as part of the divine influence of Demeter and Persephone.
From the Orphic Hymn to Persephone
O, vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight,
Sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight,
Whose holy form in budding fruits we view,
Earth’s vigorous offspring of a various hue.
Espoused in Autumn, life and death alone
To wretched mortals from thy power is known.
For thine the task according to thy will,
Life to produce, and all that lives to kill.
Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase
Of various fruits from earth, with lovely Peace.
Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my life
With blest abundance, free from noisy strife.
Last in extreme old age the prey of Death,
Dismiss we willing to the realms beneath.
To thy fair palace, and the blissful plains
Where happy spirits dwell, and Pluto reigns.
–tr. Thomas Taylor, 1792,
spelling modernized by M. Borden
This is an excerpt from Ancient GREEK Holidays published in 2024.
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