The Maiden
Kore
The girl carried below and returned.
The Maiden: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Kore, Greek for maiden, names Persephone, and Jung used it for the archetype of the young woman who is innocent, threatened, taken down into the underworld, and returned. In a woman’s psychology the figure is bound to the mother, as Kore to Demeter, the two joining the generations in one life; in a man’s she is one of the faces of the anima.
Jung wrote of her with the mythologist Karl Kerényi, whose studies of the Eleusinian mysteries set her beside the divine child.
The Maiden: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Persephone and the pomegranate, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the maiden in the tower, and Salome, whom Jung met in his own visions beside the old prophet Elijah.
From the Sources
The Hymn to Demeter tells that as the girl reached out with both hands for the 'lovely toy', the earth yawned open in the plain of Nysa and the lord, 'Host of Many', sprang out upon her with his immortal horses.
“And the girl was amazed and reached out with both hands to take the lovely toy; but the wide-pathed earth yawned there in the plain of Nysa, and the lord, Host of Many, with his immortal horses sprang out upon her”
Hesiod, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, Homeric Hymn II, 'To Demeter', ll. 4-18. Translator: Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Project Gutenberg eBook #348). The text, read in part
Bulfinch tells that because Proserpine had eaten a few pomegranate seeds offered by Pluto she could not be wholly released, and a compromise was made by which she spent half the time with her mother and the rest with her husband.
“…the maiden had taken a pomegranate which Pluto offered her, and had sucked the sweet pulp from a few of the seeds. This was enough to prevent her complete release; but a compromise was made, by which she was to pass half the time with her mother, and the rest with her husband Pluto.”
Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, Legends of Charlemagne, The Age of Fable, 'Proserpine'. Complete in one volume, Project Gutenberg eBook #4928. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore” (1941), CW 9i, with Karl Kerényi in Essays on a Science of Mythology
- The Red Book (Liber Novus), written 1914–30, published 2009
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Children and the Young
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Maiden.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/maiden.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Lotus: Rising from the mud, to open on the water. The Magician: The master of hidden powers, and their temptation. The Mandala: The circle with a centre, a picture of wholeness. Melusine: The water-woman with a serpent’s tail.