Mnemosyne (Ancient Greek: Μνημοσύνη) in Greek mythology was a Titaness, a personification of memory and the mother of the Olympian Muses.[1] She also numbered among the Mousai Titanides, the Muses of the Titans. The word "mnemonic" comes from her name.
Family[]
Mnemosyne is the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, and is a wife of Zeus. She gave birth to the Muses. Their names are:
- Calliope (epic poetry)
- Clio (history)
- Euterpe (music and lyric poetry)
- Erato (love poetry)
- Melpomene (tragedy)
- Polyhymnia (hymns)
- Terpsichore (dance)
- Thalia (comedy)
- Urania (astronomy)
The Roman poet Hyginus in his Fabulae gives Mnemosyne a different parentage, where she was the daughter of Zeus and Clymene.
Mythology[]
Birth of the Muses[]
Zeus appeared in front of Mnemosyne in the form of a mortal shepherd to try and woo her. Mnemosyne slept with him for nine days in a row, each day giving birth to a new child. The children are the Muses.
Mnemosyne was also sometime regarded as being not the mother of the Muses but as one of them, and as such she was worshiped in the sanctuary of the Muses at Mount Helicon in Boeotia:
The first to sacrifice on Helikon (Helicon) to the Mousai (Muses) and to call the mountain sacred to the Mousai were, they say, Ephialtes and Otos (Otus), who also founded Askra ... The sons of Aloeus held that the Mousai were three in number, and gave them the names Melete (Practice), Mneme (Memory), and Aoide (Aeode, Song). But they say that afterwards Pieros (Pierus), a Makedonian (Macedonian) ... came to Thespiae [in Boiotia] and established nine Mousai, changing their names to the present ones ... Mimnermos [epic poet C7th B.C.] ... says in the preface that the elder Mousai (Muses) are the daughters of Ouranos (Uranus), and that there are other and younger Mousai, children of Zeus. - Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 29. 1
The River Mnemosyne[]
Mnemosyne also presided over a pool in Hades, a counterpart to the river Lethe, according to a series of 4th-century BC Greek funerary inscriptions in dactylic hexameter. Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. In Orphism, the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop the transmigration of the soul.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Harvey, p.277
[]
| Titans | |
|---|---|
| Parents | Ouranós • Gaîa |
| Elder Titans | Coeus • Crius • Cronus • Hyperion • Iapetus • Oceanus |
| Elder Titanesses | Phoebe • Mnemosyne • Rhea • Theia • Themis • Tethys |
| Coeonides | Asteria • Leto |
| Crionides | Astraeus • Pallas • Perses |
| Hyperionides | Eos • Hḗlios • Selene |
| Iapetonides | Atlas • Epimetheus • Menoetius • Prometheus |
| Oceanides | Oceanids (Clymene • Metis • Styx • Rhode) • Potamoi |
| Third Generation | Hecate • Astraea • Anemoi • Astra Planeta • Kratos • Nike • Bia • Zelus |
| Miscellaneous Titans | Dione • Anytos • Ophion • Eurynome (wife of Ophion) • Lelantos • Melisseus • Titan (brother of Helios) • Olymbros • Syceus • Titanic Muses |
| Topics | Overthrowing of Ouranós • Titanomachy |