Baubo: a case of ambiguous genitalia in the Eleusinian mysteries.

* This paper is a selective précis from a forthcoming full study of the Baubo affair in all its aspects philological, medical, religious and philosophical. Parts I and III were written by A.L. Pierris; part II from N.A. Georgopoulos and G.A. Vagenakis. Demeter wanders over the wide earth, sorrowful and lamenting, in search of her. Her quest is in vain. The great Goddess finally arrives at Eleusis and sits, unrecognized , grief-stricken by a subsequently sacred well. She encounters local people there and is particularly hospitably entertained by a woman called Baubo. According to another version of the Orphic testimony 3 , which may indeed constitute the framework of the same overall account (a Êüñçò ÊÜèïäïò, Core’s Descent) into which the Baubo episode is inscribed, Baubo is the local queen, wife of Celeus and mother of Demophoon. Alternative traditions make the Eleus-inian King 4 , who, for standard Orphism, is father of Eubuleus and Triptolemus 5 , divine and heroic figures respectively, of crucial importance for the Mysteries. Some reports 6 make Dysaules husband of Baudo. Their offsprings are then Protonoe and Misa, daughters personifying Primal Intelligence and Sexual Lewd-ness respectively. Dysaules is (as we shall see) an appropriate partner to Baubo, given the connotation of sexual malformation in his membrum virile which his In an Orphic account of the constitutive mythology of the Eleusinian Mysteries, there occurs the relation of a remarkable tale of sacred obscenity. The Baubo affair is pivotal for a more in-depth understanding of the symbolism involved in the most awesome mysteric cult of the ancient Greek world. .or it is there that is revealed what occasioned the change in Dem-eter’s attitude regarding her daughter Persephone’s rape. Our main sources for this event are two Church .athers, Clemens of Alexandria 1 and Arnobius 2. The relevant passages can be conveniently consulted in O.