d her to give
to women the blessing of fair children. We know but little of the
sacrifices, dances, and merry games which occupied this final day of the
festival. This worship of Demeter was one of the most elevating
influences in the social life of Athens; and the Thesmophoria was but a
prelude to the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, into which women
as well as men were initiated.

The ceremonies at Eleusis seem to have consisted primarily in a dramatic
representation of the beautiful legend of Demeter and Persephone, from
which many moral lessons could be drawn. Homer has preserved to us this
legend in the Homeric hymn beginning:

"I begin to sing fair-haired Demeter, a hallowed goddess,--herself and
her slim-ankled daughter whom Hades snatched away from golden-sworded
Demeter, renowned for fruits, as the maiden sported with the
deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus, culling flowers through the soft
meadow--roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, hyacinths, the iris
and the narcissus, which Earth, at the command of Zeus, favoring the
All-Receiver [Hades], brought forth as a snare to the maiden. From its
root an hundred heads sprung forth, and the whole wide heaven above was
scented with its fragrance, and the whole earth laughed, and the briny
wave of the sea. And the girl stretched out both her hands to seize the
pretty plaything, when the wide-winged earth yawned in the Mysian plain
where the all-receiving king, the many-named son of Cronus, leaped forth
with his immortal steeds and snatched her away, unwilling, in his golden
chariot, weeping and shrieking aloud, calling upon her father, the son
of Cronus."

The hymn then recounts how the goddess-mother roamed for nine days over
the earth, seeking her lost daughter, till on the tenth she learned the
truth from the all-seeing Sun. Angered at Zeus for permitting the
violence, she wandered about among men in the form of an old woman, till
at length, at Eleusis, in Attica, she was kindly received at the house
of King Celeus, and acted as nurse for his newborn son, Demophon. She
would have made the lad immortal by giving him a bath of fire; but being
surprised and prevented by the mother, she revealed her deity, and
caused to be erected in her honor a temple, in which she gave herself up
to her sorrow. In anger, she made the earth barren, and would not allow
the crops to spring up again until her daughter was allowed to spend
two-thirds of the year with her moth