Metanira

Metanira (Metaneira in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) was the wife of Celeus, ruler of Eleusis, and the mother of the child Demophoon, whom the goddess Demeter nursed while she searched for her lost daughter Persephone. When Metanira saw Demeter holding her son in the fire, her cry ended the goddess’ attempt to make the boy immortal and led Demeter to reveal who she was and to order a temple built at Eleusis.

Family of Metanira

Metanira was the wife of Celeus. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter she has four daughters, Callidice, Cleisidice, Demo and Callithoe, the eldest, and a late-born, long-prayed-for son (Hymn to Demeter 105–110, 164–165, 219–220). The son is named Demophoon (Hymn to Demeter 234, 248); Apollodorus calls him Demophon (Library 1.5.1).

Triptolemus is also linked to her. Apollodorus calls him “the elder of Metanira’s children” (Library 1.5.2), and Pausanias says that the Athenians knew Triptolemus as the son of Celeus, while the Argives called him the son of Trochilus (Pausanias 1.14.2–3). The Homeric Hymn names Triptolemus among the leading men of Eleusis but does not call him Celeus’ son (Hymn to Demeter 153–155, 473–479). Ovid, in his Fasti, makes Triptolemus the sick baby son whom Demeter nursed; the household also has a small daughter (Fasti 4.507–562).

Metanira and Demeter

The Welcome

Grieving for Persephone, Demeter came to Eleusis in the shape of an old woman and sat by a well. There the four daughters of Celeus found her. She told them that her name was Doso and that pirates had carried her off from Crete; she asked for work as a nurse or housekeeper. The girls told her of their mother Metaneira and of her late-born son, and went home to ask her (Hymn to Demeter 98–168). Metaneira was sitting by a pillar of the roof with the baby in her lap when the goddess crossed the threshold; her head touched the roof beams and the doorway filled with a divine light. Awe, reverence and pale fear seized Metaneira and she gave up her couch to the visitor (Hymn to Demeter 184–191). Demeter would not sit until the servant Iambe set a seat for her; she refused the red wine Metaneira offered and asked for barley and water mixed with mint, the drink called kykeon (Hymn to Demeter 192–211).

Metaneira then spoke, saying that the stranger did not seem to be of low birth, and entrusted her son, born late and unhoped for, to her care, promising great rewards if the boy should grow up. Demeter accepted and said that no ill-wishing or herb would harm him (Hymn to Demeter 212–230).

The Nursing of Demophoon

Demeter took the child to her breast. He grew wondrously fast, though he neither ate nor was suckled: by day Demeter anointed him with ambrosia, and by night she hid him in the fire like a brand, unknown to his parents. She would have made him ageless and immortal (Hymn to Demeter 231–242).

Metanira’s Cry

Metaneira, foolishly, spied on her in the night. She saw the child in the fire, struck her thighs, cried out in fear for him, and wailed that the stranger was hiding him in the fire (Hymn to Demeter 243–249). Demeter, angry, took the child out of the flames and laid him on the ground. She told the queen that humans were foolish and could not foresee good or evil, and that Metaneira’s folly had ruined the plan: by the water of Styx, the boy would have been deathless and ageless, but now he could not escape death. Still, he would have undying honour, because he had lain in Demeter’s arms, and as the years passed the sons of the Eleusinians would wage a mock war with one another (Hymn to Demeter 251–267).

Demeter Reveals Herself

Demeter then declared that she was Demeter, the greatest benefit and joy of gods and mortals, and ordered the people to build her a great temple and altar on the hill above the Callichorus well, promising to teach her rites herself (Hymn to Demeter 268–274). She cast off old age, and the house shone with a light like lightning. Metaneira’s knees gave way; she was speechless for a long time and did not think to pick up her son from the floor (Hymn to Demeter 275–283). His sisters ran to him, took him up, lit the fire and washed him, but he would not be comforted (Hymn to Demeter 284–291). In the morning they told Celeus all that had happened, and he called an assembly and ordered the temple to be built (Hymn to Demeter 292–300). Later Demeter showed the rites to the rulers of Eleusis, among them Triptolemus and Celeus (Hymn to Demeter 473–479).

Other Versions

In Apollodorus, Metanira, wife of Celeus, had a child, and Demeter took it to nurse. To make him immortal she set the baby on the fire at night and burned away his mortal flesh. But because the child, Demophon, grew wondrously by day, Praxithea kept watch; she found him buried in the fire and cried out, and so the baby was consumed by the flames and the goddess revealed herself. For Triptolemus, the elder of Metanira’s children, she made a chariot of winged dragons and gave him wheat, with which he sowed the whole inhabited world (Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1–2). In Ovid’s version, Metanira is the mother of a sick child whom Demeter heals with a kiss; at midnight Demeter puts him in the embers to burn away his mortal nature, and when his mother wakes in terror and snatches him from the fire, the goddess says that he will remain mortal but will be the first to plough and sow, and then rises in her chariot drawn by dragons (Fasti 4.539–562).

The Sanctuary of Metaneira

Pausanias records a sanctuary of Metaneira at Eleusis, a little beyond the well called Anthium on the road to Megara. He adds that the poet Pamphos described how Demeter, in the likeness of an old woman, sat at that well, how the daughters of Celeus took her to their mother, and how Metaneira entrusted her son to her to rear (Pausanias 1.39.1–2).

Metanira Sources

Homeric Hymn to Demeter 98–300, 473–479; Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1–2; Pausanias 1.14.2–3, 1.39.1–2; Ovid, Fasti 4.507–562.

See Also: Celeus, Triptolemus, Demophoon, Demeter, Persephone, Eleusis