Kore

"Maiden." A title of Persephone as the goddess of the bounty of spring. The name is used particularly in the mystery cult of Demeter.

In the mysteries of Eleusis, the return of Kore from the lower world was regarded as the symbol of immortality, and hence she was frequently represented on sarcophagi. In the mystical theories of the Orphics, and what are called the Platonists, Kore is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature, who both produces and destroys every thing,1 and she is therefore mentioned along, or identified with, other mystic divinities, such as Isis, Rhea, Gaea, Hestia, Pandora Artemis, Hecate.2 This mystic Persephone is further said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus, Iacchus, Zagreus or Sabazius.3

In some versions, Kore becomes the mother, without there being a father, of Corybas.

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References

Notes

  1. Orphic Hymn 29, 16.
  2. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 708, 1176; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, iii, 467; Scholiast on Theocritus, ii, 12; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid iv, 609.
  3. Hesychius, s.v. Ζαγρεύς; Scholiast on Euripides' Orestes, 952; Aristophanes. The Frogs, 326; Diodorus Siculus, iv, 4; Arrian. Expedition of Alexander the Great ii, 16; Ioannes Lydus. De Mensibus, p. 198; Cicero. On the Nature of the Gods iii, 23.

Sources

  • Aken, Dr. A.R.A. van. (1961). Elseviers Mythologische Encyclopedie. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Bartelink, Dr. G.J.M. (1988). Prisma van de mythologie. Utrecht: Het Spectrum.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.