CHAPTER TEN METAPHOR, METONYMY, AND MYTH: PERSEPHONE’S DEATH-LIKE JOURNEY IN THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER IN THE LIGHT OF GREEK PHRASEOLOGY, INDO-EUROPEAN POETICS, AND COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS 1 RICCARDO GINEVRA The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, an Ancient Greek epic poem composed during the first half of the 1 st millennium BCE, is our main source for the myth of the goddess Persephone’s abduction by the death-god Hades, and of her mother Demeter’s subsequent sorrows. This chapter argues for a combined approach to the interpretation of this text that takes into account Greek parallels, comparative data from other Indo-European poetic traditions, and the findings of contemporary Cognitive Linguistics. 1 This contribution is part of the project “The Poetics of Distress: Indo-European Phraseology and Themes in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,” which was supported by a Fellowship in Hellenic Studies (2019-2020) from Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies. For encouragement, discussion, criticism, and help with specific aspects of this research, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Center’s director Gregory Nagy, as well as to Erica Biagetti, Anna Bonifazi, Mario Cantilena, Robert Cioffi, Andrea Lorenzo Covini, Chiara Fedriani, José Luis García Ramón, and Daniel Kölligan. The usual disclaimers apply. Standard abbreviations are used for Classical sources. The translations of Greek and Latin passages are adapted from those of the Loeb Classical Library; other translations are adapted from Dronke 1997 (VІluspá), Faulkes 1987 (Gylfaginning), Gray 1982 (Cath Maige Tuired), Hoffner 1998, 34 (KBo 22.178 ii 3-7 + KUB 48.109 ii 4-8), Jamison and Brereton 2014 (Rigveda), and Marold 2017 (Vǫlu- Steinn Ѕgmundardrápa).