Invoking the water of Lerna
Résumé
The question under examination is the ambivalent reputation of the water in Lerna. The paper recalls the hydrography of the Argian territory and its mythical explanations, especially the pecularities of the springs and 'lake' of Lerna, as well as the myths and cults located in the Lernean sacred wood and in its neighbourhood, with a critical approach of Pausanias' testimony (II, 36,6-37,6). Wilderness, excessive abundance, material and religious defilement, infernal and also comic connotations, the name of Προσύμνη alluding to marriage and allowing to associate Dionysos and his guide and lover Prosymnos as well with Hera and the Proetides as with Demeter, and later a kind of rivalry between the Eleusinian and the Larnaean mysteries, are the answers we try to propose.