德墨忒尔Demeter
雅思口语素材：古希腊12主神介绍(德墨忒尔)
希腊神话中丰产、农林女神，是天空之神克罗诺斯与时光女神瑞亚的女儿，宙斯的二姐与第四位妻子，生下了冥后珀耳塞福涅Persephone。在西方，德墨忒尔是最受欢迎的神祇。
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Demeter (/diˈmiːtər/; Attic Δημήτηρ Dēmētēr. DoricΔαμάτηρ Dāmātēr) is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains and the fertilityof the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (σίτος: wheat) as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law) as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.
Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of marriage, the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughterPersephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of circa 1400-1200 BC found at Pylos, the "two mistresses and the king" are identified with Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. Her Romanequivalent is Ceres.
Agricultural deity
According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife. These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. In Homer's Odyssey she is the blond-haired goddess who separates the chaff from the grain. In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonicZeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong. Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.
In Hesiod's Theogony, Demeter is the daughter of Cronus and Rhea. At the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, Demeter lured Iasion away from the other revelers. They had intercourse in a ploughed furrow in Crete, and she gave birth to a son, Ploutos. Her daughter by Zeus was Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
