Abstract
“The daughter becomes identical with the mother.” This statement of Erich Neumann (1963, 309), providing what may well be the key to the mystery of the cult to Demeter and Persephone in antiquity, haunted me for months as I wrote my master’s thesis on these two goddesses in central Sicily. There was a depth to it, fascinating and unplumbable, that kept me traveling ever further inward.
Now is come the last age of the Cumaean prophecy: The great cycle of periods is born anew. Now returns the [Virgin] … Now from high heaven a new generation comes down.
—Virgil Fourth Eclogue (4–7)1
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© 2009 Marguerite Rigoglioso
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Rigoglioso, M. (2009). Introduction. In: The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230620919_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230620919_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37848-7
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