How the flower of death factored into the Eleusinian mysteries and the Persephone myth.
Scientific Name: Poppy Somniferum (Sleep-bringing swell) Opium/Bread-seed poppy
In all the steamy drama, romance, and speculation that comes from re-tellings of the myth of Persephone and Hades, people often hide and ignore key elements of the story in favor of sweeter narratives. They tend not to talk about the pursuit of Demeter except as a possible creation story for winter. The significance of the poppy is almost obscured from history by the secrecy of rituals related to Demeter and Persephone. With the Eleusinian mysteries, which were strongly associated with the myth of Persephone’s abduction, we may have lost the ancient Greek secret to immortality.
However, there must be a way to bring some of these truths to light. With this goal, I wanted to tell the story from a different perspective.
In the myth of Persephone’s abduction, Hades lured Persephone with a narcissus flower and swept her away. Demeter, hearing her daughter’s distress cry, ran after her daughter, but couldn’t find any trace of her, and, streaked with worry, she frantically searched and implored anyone she could for answers.
Finally, Demeter discovered her daughter was likely in the Land of the Dead. Inconsolable, Demeter left the immortal realm and disguised herself as a nurse in the mortal city, Eleusis, settling in the home of Metanaira and her son Demephon. While posing as a normal caregiver, she secretly fed the boy ambrosia, the food of the gods, and, lovingly lulling him to sleep every night, placed him into a blazing firepit.
While this isn’t recommended in parenting guides today, some say Demeter did this out of grief and love, trying to replace her absent immortal child by nourishing Demephon as if he were her own. However, others claim this was a ploy to save Persephone. Demeter couldn’t physically enter the Underworld (as a god of the earth) and had no right to fight Hades (as Persephone’s father, Zeus, was the one who gave her away). However, Eleusis sits near the lip of the Pleutonian cave, one of the few direct passages between Earth and the Underworld, bringing the two worlds closer together, and it’s possible Demeter was bringing herself closer to her daughter by creating a space between the living and dead (divine and mortal) through Demephon.
In any case, when Metanaira found out about this arrangement, she was more than a little upset (reasonably so, depending on who you ask), and while shouting at the nurse she pulled the child out of the fire; Demeter in turn declared that, while she might have gifted Demephon immortality if Metanaira hadn’t so rudely interfered, he would instead be cursed to see annual warfare and death. Then, she withdrew her blessing on the land, causing famine and turmoil.
Some say Demeter wasted away in the temple Eleusis had built for her as the land dried up; others say she grew poppies (a pain-killer) from the ensuing deaths to quell her misery. But in one version, these poppies spilled across the passage of the Underworld, where its Messengers— Hypnos (Sleep), Morpheus (Dreams), and Thanatos (Death)—were enamored by their beauty and touched them, lacing the flowers with each of their characteristics while creating a new path of communication where Demeter wasted away, reaching for the daughter who she could now see, but who still lay just beyond her grasp.
It is said that, after the narcissus lured Persephone to the Underworld, Demeter’s poppy tethered Persephone to the Earth, and Hades’ pomegranate tethered her to the Underworld.
There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding this myth. Even in the presence of archaeological findings (like inverted-poppy-shaped juglets in Cyprus or poppy goddesses crowned with distinct poppyseed pods), the ancient perspective of this plant has been enshrouded by a cult that neatly folds its secrets from history; these aptly named “Eleusinian mysteries” leave tantalizing traces of a ritual that pushed initiates toward the concept of the resurrection and eternal life that Demephon lost and Persephone achieved.
Many try to trace the story back with sparse archaeological and textual evidence cross-referenced with older sources and extrapolated interpretations of specific lines. However, I think a lot can be said about the physical characteristics of one of the plants overtly related to the myth.
Like the myth of Persephone, the physical attributes of the poppy plant closely keep to the theme of life and death. While Greek culture honors poppies in wheat cultivation, calling them “daughters of the field” and tossing them in plots for luck, the plant is notoriously susceptible to environmental and temperature changes which make them a fickle crop with unstable economic influence. Often, the plant is afflicted by fungal or insectile infections that warp the leaves and stunt its development, giving it the impression of being on death’s doorstep.
For example, downy mildew and root rot often appear in moist environments, deforming the plant’s leaves and eventually killing them. Leaf blight fungus, one of the most destructive poppy diseases, clings to the plant’s seeds and stunts young plants, rotting their roots after the plants germinate. A weevil infestation can lead to repeated offenses in which the tiny insectile pest burrows into the soil and hibernates with the poppy’s seeds, stunting them in the spring.
On the other hand, they can grow in a wide range of conditions, from the arid infertile lands of war zones to the cold temperatures of USDA Zone 3.
The effect these characteristics create is the image painted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses(a Roman account) after Demeter curses the ground for taking her daughter: young shoots push up and stunt, overly affected by the sun and the weather. It also creates a physical impression of liminality, a plant caught between stubborn life and sickly death. Just as Demeter linked Demephon’s life with war, the poppy became heavily associated with the battlefield not only because of the classic blood-red color of its petals but also because it often survives the tumultuous landscape of combat. It popped up quickly around the bodies of soldiers during the Napoleonic wars, and its abundance around the graveyards associated it with the sacrifice and remembrance of soldiers in the Commonwealth after World War I.
It became popular in war-torn Afghanistan as well, where political and economic turmoil demanded a profitable cash crop to fund its warfare; the poppy was a tempting crop to turn to here, not only because it could survive war-torn fields and Afghanistan’s inherently dry climate and difficult terrain, yielding dry, easily transportable opium, but because it sold at a higher premium than standard crops (selling opium poppy made seventeen times more profit than wheat).
In a ceremonial setting, this plant likely symbolized its persistent dance between life and death. However, its physical effects on the human body tell a far more interesting story about the nuances of this relationship from this cultural perspective.
Poppy seeds are highly nutritious. Incorporated into baked goods (especially in East Europe), poppyseed is high in protein, magnesium, iron, zinc, and calcium, which are proven to benefit the body’s muscle, nerve, and immune development and function. Its mono- and polyunsaturated fats not only give these seeds a long-shelf; along with its vitamin E, vitamin B1, antioxidant, and polyphenol levels, these fats repair and maintains a healthy heart and skin.
On the other hand, the plant is extremely toxic and the seeds are surrounded by a pod dense with an alkaloid concoction known as opium.
The different components of opium span across five classes of drugs. Morphine is the most abundant; already ten times more powerful than opium, making it one of the most effective pain drugs, morphine was refined into what is now known as heroin (this is so effective that it was bumped up to a Class 1 drug). Codeine, a milder alkaloid, combats coughs and moderate pain. Thebaine acts more like a stimulant, and oxycodone is a derivative of thebaine.
Most commonly, these alkaloids are harvested from the dried latex of slashed pods. However, some dry the whole plant into a brown powder (ie. poppy straw) or soak parts into alcohol tinctures (ie. laudanum) or water tea.
Although opium is an important medical discovery as a painkiller, it’s still a depressant. Taking over the brain receptors designed for neurotransmitters like endorphins, opiates masquerade as these natural chemical signals, reducing pain and triggering the brain’s immediate reward system.
This part of the brain’s system (the receptors and their neurotransmitters) is so perfectly designed for opiates to manipulate that it’s called the endogenous [ie. Internal] opioid system, named after the drug rather than the endogenous transmitters.
However, unlike endorphins, opiates impair the body’s nervous system, causing sedation, dizziness/nausea, and vomiting. Meanwhile, the nervous system’s direct correlation with the body’s digestive and immune systems inhibits mucus and digestive enzymes, leading to dry mouth and digestive issues, and eventually exacerbating constipation and respiratory issues. In the end, overusing opium can lead to hallucinations, seizures, loss of consciousness, and death.
Funnily enough, the poppy flower reflects this relaxant quality of opium; starting in a tightly crumpled fist, the petals unfurl into a gorgeous bloom but quickly straighten out (to the dismay of florists who love long-lasting flowers) and fall off.
Some people associate this toxicity with motherly instincts: the pod is specifically designed to protect the bounty of seeds inside. Indeed, while its scientific name comes from the Latin word “papaver” or “to swell” (which can insinuate pregnancy), the word poppy comes from the Latin word “pappa” or “milk,” and opium from the Greek word “opion,” also “milk”; much of its name and its characteristics allude to motherhood. While a seed pod swelling with seeds historically invokes images of fertility, abundance, and motherhood, ancient texts (like the 16th century BC Egyptian record called the Ebers papyrus) suggest opium was used to increase female fertility and libido (opium relaxes the body and removes mucus from the fallopian tubes), cure breast abscesses, and calm crying children; as a pain-killer, it had an obvious application in childbirth, and archaeologists found links between poppy seed capsules and birthing goddess amulets on ancient Egyptian necklaces. In Celtic folklore, there’s a clear line drawn between opium and infant ailments like jaundice and colic.
This suggests themes of motherhood likely feature heavily in the Eleusinian mysteries and the ancient perspective on the poppy; it’s likely the poppy was meant to invoke Demeter’s motherly protection during the descent of the child (or the initiate) underground.
However, the myth, like the plant, doesn’t invoke motherly protection. Just as both the opium and the seed are harvested from the poppy plant at the end of its season, Demeter doesn’t stop Persephone from being taken, and Metanaira’s interference inhibits rather than preserves her son’s life. While motherhood is a strong theme in the story, the stories of motherhood suggest the failure of protection. The mystery doesn’t focus on motherhood and abundance but on something far less beautiful: loss.
Although some scholars argue there’s not enough evidence to assume opium addiction was prevalent in ancient Greece, Demeter’s ingression into Metanaira’s household resembles opium’s infiltration into the body’s endogenous opioid system. Demeter initially offers a small relief from motherhood but over-imposes herself, such that her leave feels like a terrible deprivation; she revokes the promise of immortality that the mother had not dared hope for until the moment of its loss. Opium, likewise, offers pain relief and a brief feeling of invincibility, only to leave a strong sense of addiction. It provides relief and sleep that leads to cramping and restlessness in its withdrawal, and, while it provides temporary peace, long-term use can lead to death.
In a way, this feeling of loss is associated with corruption. Just as the loss of her daughter turns Demeter into a nefarious figure that deprives (rather than provides), the loss of immortality corrupts Demephon’s existence, embroiling him in warfare. The temptation and loss of opium has become a symbol of corruption associated with the poppy which repeats itself throughout history.
In China, opium trickled through an attractive, lucrative network between Europe and Asia aptly named the Silk Road; the road was paved by Western conflict and conquest, but the network promised a surplus of wealth, trade, and stability for the East and the West. In the eighteenth century, opium came with the promise of wealth and comfort. However, when the Daoguang Emperor decided to shut down its trade and combat internal addiction, he revealed a country riddled with external conflict and internal rebellion. While the government’s bans did nothing to combat addiction, Western countries like Britain and France responded to the economic blockage with brute force; in a series of international conflicts known as the Opium wars, the West forced China into unfair treaties that opened treaty ports, legalized opium, and ceded Hong Kong. While this period was known as the Age of Enlightenment for European countries, China came to view the eighteenth century as the Century of Humiliation.
In the nineteenth century, many immigrants, including underpaid Chinese workers, who precariously followed the promise of the gold rush and the American Dream ended up working cheap labor for the transatlantic North American railway; they, with the American people of the time, saw opium as a “nostalgic” or naïve pleasure and a social partaking despite an awareness of a threat that features itself in a famous scene in Frank Braum’s Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy (already presumably unconscious from a head injury) is threatened to an eternal sleep by a field of poppies. In the advent of World War I, this threat had to be overlooked to ease the pain of millions of soldiers, and poppies were even used as a symbol of the sacrifice of soldiers. Still, around this time, they had also become a symbol of corrupting addiction.
While poppies were a convenient crop to grow in Afghanistan due to their physical characteristics, global instability and supply shortages following World War I called for further economic dependence on poppy cultivation in the twentieth century— a position further cemented by the Soviet invasion in 1979, with resistance leaders using opium to finance their warfare, and then the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, where the power vacuum left factions fighting for control and power, information, and money could be obtained by residents and foreign meddlers through the trade.
In all these cases, the temptation of wealth, peace, and freedom slowly became a symbol of money, corruption, and power, trickling through pre-existing economic networks and ingratiating itself in society to the point of necessity, much like the witches of cautionary tales tempt children of the path of innocence. The poppy is an obvious source of evil, and many societies actively try to purge it of its depravity.
In Canada, citizens are allowed to grow and cultivate the poppy for bread seed but not for opium (the poppy must be bread seed poppy and not opium poppy); in the UK, a license is required for extracting opium, but in Germany, it is required to grow opium poppies. In the USA, the laws are controversially ambiguous regarding the poppy (the crackdown on opium being plagued with unfair trials and loopholes), but, in the UAE, the laws are controversially rigid, resulting in paltry pastry arrests. Food safety authorities argue that cleaning and cooking poppy seeds can reduce 90% of the opiate compounds, but still claim that you should only eat 1 tbsp per 7 lb of body fat, and eating poppy seeds can still result in positive drug tests up to 60 hours after the fact.
In this moral extraction, it seems the poppy seed (chock full of nutrients and cultural value) is the “good” that must be extracted from the “bad,” or the poppy pod (chock full of addictive alkaloids and health complications). However, just as you can’t safely remove a child from their mother, and you can’t extract an idea that’s already been planted, you can’t separate the poppy seed from the opium. Although people genetically engineer poppies based on their respective purposes—pharmaceutical cultivars are modified for maximized alkaloid contents while culinary cultivars generate minimized amounts of opium—the opium content is highly variable for each plant: one study says one kilogram of poppy tea can contain anywhere between 10-105 milligrams of morphine and 3-11 milligrams of codeine. Not only that, the “opium poppy” (Papaver somniferum) and “bread seed poppy” (Papaver somniferum) are, quite simply, the same plant.
Ancient symbolism doesn’t separate the seeds from the pod or infuse the plant with this moral polarity. In Slavic culture, poppy heads decorate homes as symbols of plentitude and to ward the evil it represents in modern cultures. And even though people try to extricate the seeds of the plant, they often get tainted in opium in the harvest; even when they don’t, the seed in excess increases risk of inflammation (due to its high omega-6 to omega-3 fat ratio) and kidney/renal dysfunction (due to its high level of potassium and phosphorus), rescinding the benefits of its fiber, which exacerbates the constipation symptoms caused by opium.
This may further signify corruption; the entire plant has been tainted by the nature of the drug, to a point where it can no longer be extricated. Sleep is aligned with death, and the poppy alludes to both: Hypnos and Thanatos both fashioned poppy crowns. the initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries likely traveled to the caves in the pursuit of immortality discover that life always coincides with death; perhaps the ritual chastens those who seek what’s evidently beyond their grasp and leaves them with the yearning opium would create.
But perhaps there’s a third meaning beyond the moral concepts behind the poppy seed and its pod, which lies in the flower. In Chinese culture, Buddhist practices use the poppy flower as a symbol of enlightenment and transcendence, and an old legend tells of a lady, Lady Yee, who dances and fights like poppy petals in the wind. After failing to uplift her Herculean husband, Lady Yee commits suicide, springing poppies from the ground; in this version, the poppy is burdened by the man and not the flower, but the woman is bound to the man, and transcendence is bound to mortality. The flower itself is light, but the pod and seeds are heavy. However, the weight of this transition is always followed by more blooms.
This is the secret of the poppy: it’s inextricable from its parts. Just as you can’t have the bread seed without inviting opium, you can’t live life without also inviting death; even though modern societies draw a moral contradiction between the parts of the poppy, other angles reveal that these parts are equivalent.
Every part of the plant reflects this. Even in the face of death, the poppy survives, but in its survival, it often becomes warped and convoluted, curling at the edges. The healing powers of the plant were always considered both good and evil (popharmakon), and its effects are prized and rejected by local and global government bodies.
Just as Demephon falls short of immortality because of his mother’s fear of death, Persephone re-emerges brighter because she is given the chance to leave. In the presence of fear and survival comes the cloying desire for peace and death, and if you try to lean toward one side or the other, you end up changing the outcome and distorting your reality. However, I think the myth and its mystery suggest that, by balancing life and death in what might be considered a force of will, you can earn the gift of Demeter. In other words: only by plunging ourselves toward death are we able to live.