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Mnemosyne

For other uses, seeMnemosyne (disambiguation).

InGreek mythologyandancient Greek religion,Mnemosyne(/nɪˈmɒzɪniː,nɪˈmɒsɪniː/;Ancient Greek:Μνημοσύνη,pronounced[mnɛːmosýːnɛː]) is thegoddessofmemoryand the mother of the nineMusesby her nephewZeus.In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of theTitans,the twelve divine children of the earth-goddessGaiaand the sky-godUranus.The termMnemosyneis derived from the same source as the wordmnemonic,that being the Greek wordmnēmē,which means "remembrance, memory".[1][2]

Mnemosyne
Goddessof memory and remembrance
Member of theTitans
Antique mosaic of Mnemosyne,National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona
GreekΜνημοσύνη
AbodeMount Olympus
Genealogy
ParentsUranusandGaia
Siblings
  • Briareus
  • Cottus
  • Gyges
Others
Half-siblings
ConsortsZeus
Offspring

Family

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ATitaness,Mnemosyne is the daughter ofUranusandGaia.[3]Mnemosyne became the mother of the nineMuses,fathered by her nephew,Zeus:

Hyginusin hisFabulaegives Mnemosyne a different parentage, where she was the daughter of Zeus andClymene.[4]

Mythology

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Jupiter, disguised as a shepherd, tempts MnemosynebyJacob de Wit(1727)

InHesiod'sTheogony,kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech from their possession of Mnemosyne and their special relationship with the Muses. Zeus,in the form of a mortal shepherd, slept together with Mnemosyne for nine consecutive nights, thus conceiving the nineMuses.Mnemosyne also presided over a pool[5]inHades,a counterpart to the riverLethe,according to a series of 4th-century BC Greekfunerary inscriptionsindactylic hexameter.Dead souls drank fromLetheso they would not remember their past lives whenreincarnated.InOrphism,the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop thetransmigration of the soul.[6]

Appearance in oral literature

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Although she was categorized as one of theTitansin theTheogony,Mnemosyne did not quite fit that distinction.[7]Titans were hardly worshiped inAncient Greece,and were thought of as so archaic as to belong to the ancient past.[7]They resembled historical figures more than anything else. Mnemosyne, on the other hand, traditionally appeared in the first few lines of many oralepic poems [8]—she appears in both theIliadand theOdyssey,among others—as the speaker called upon her aid in accurately remembering and performing the poem they were about to recite. Mnemosyne is thought to have been given the distinction of "Titan" becausememorywas so important and basic to theoral cultureof the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks ofcivilizationin theircreation myth.[8]

Later, oncewritten literatureovertook the oral recitation of epics,Platomade reference in hisEuthydemusto the older tradition of invoking Mnemosyne. The characterSocratesprepares to recount a story and says "ὥστ᾽ ἔγωγε, καθάπερ οἱ (275d) ποιηταί, δέομαι ἀρχόμενος τῆς διηγήσεως Μούσας τε καὶΜνημοσύνηνἐπικαλεῖσθαι. "which translates to" Consequently, like the poets, I must needs begin my narrative with an invocation of theMusesandMemory"(emphasis added).[9]Aristophanesalso harked back to the tradition in his playLysistratawhen adrunkenSpartanambassadorinvokes her name while prancing around pretending to be a bard from times of yore.[10]

Cult

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Mnemosyne(also known asLamp of MemoryorRicordanza) byDante Gabriel Rossetti(c. 1876 to 1881).

While not one of the most popular divinities, Mnemosyne was the subject of some minor worship in Ancient Greece. Statues of her are mentioned in the sanctuaries of other gods, and she was often depicted alongside her daughters the Muses. She was also worshipped inLebadeiainBoeotia,atMount Heliconin Boeotia, and in the cult ofAsclepius.

There was a statue of Mnemosyne in the shrine of Dionysos at Athens, alongside the statues of the Muses, Zeus and Apollo,[11]as well as a statue with her daughters the Muses in theTemple of Athena Alea.[12]Pausaniasdescribed the worship of Mnemosyne in Lebadeia in Boeotia, where she played an important part in the oracular sanctuary ofTrophonios:

[Part of the rituals at the oracle of Trophonios (Trophonius) at Lebadeia, Boiotia (Boeotia):] He [the supplicant] is taken by the priests, not at once to the oracle, but to fountains of water very near to each other. Here he must drink water called the water of Lethe (Forgetfulness), that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Mnemosyne (Memory), which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent... After his ascent from [the oracle of] Trophonios the inquirer is again taken in hand by the priests, who set him upon a chair called the chair of Mnemosyne (Memory), which stands not far from the shrine, and they ask of him, when seated there, all he has seen or learned. After gaining this information they then entrust him to his relatives. These lift him, paralysed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings, and carry him to the building where he lodged before with Tykhe (Tyche, Fortune) and the Daimon Agathon (Good Spirit). Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him.[13]

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.[14]

Cult of Asclepius

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Mnemosyne was one of thedeitiesworshiped in thecultofAsclepiusthat formed inAncient Greecearound the 5th century BC.[15]Asclepius,aGreek hero and godofmedicine,was said to have been able to cure maladies, and the cult incorporated a multitude of other Greek heroes and gods in its process of healing.[15]The exact order of theofferingsandprayersvaried by location,[16]and the supplicant often made an offering to Mnemosyne.[15]After making an offering toAsclepiushimself, in some locations, one last prayer was said to Mnemosyne as the supplicant moved to the holiest portion of theAsclepeiontoincubate.[15]The hope was that a prayer to Mnemosyne would help the supplicant remember anyvisionshad whilesleepingthere.[16]

Genealogy

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Mnemosyne's family tree[17]
UranusGaiaPontus
OceanusTethysHyperionTheiaCriusEurybia
TheRiversTheOceanidsHeliosSelene[18]EosAstraeusPallasPerses
CronusRheaCoeusPhoebe
HestiaHeraHadesZeusLetoAsteria
DemeterPoseidon
IapetusClymene(orAsia)[19]MNEMOSYNE(Zeus)Themis
Atlas[20]MenoetiusPrometheus[21]EpimetheusTheMusesTheHorae

See also

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References

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  1. ^Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). Jones, Sir Henry Stuart; McKenzie, Roderick (eds.)."μνήμη".A Greek-English Lexicon.Oxford: Clarendon Press.Retrieved2018-01-10.
  2. ^Memoryand the nameMemnon,as in "Memnon of Rhodes"are etymologically related. Mnemosyne is sometimes confused withMnemeor compared withMemoria.
  3. ^Hesiod,Theogony135;Diodorus Siculus,5.66.3;Clement of Alexandria,Recognitions31.
  4. ^Hyginus,FabulaePreface
  5. ^Richard Janko,"Forgetfulness in the Golden Tablets of Memory",Classical Quarterly34 (1984) 89–100; see article "Totenpass"for the reconstructeddevotionalwhich instructs the initiated soul through the landscape ofHades,including the pool of Memory.
  6. ^"Lethe | Greek mythology".Encyclopedia Britannica.Retrieved2017-03-30.
  7. ^abRose, H.J. (1991).A Handbook of Greek Mythology: including its extension to Rome(6th ed.). London: Taylor and Francis, Inc.ISBN9780415046015.
  8. ^abNotopoulos, James A. (1938). "Mnemosyne in Oral Literature".Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.69:466.doi:10.2307/283194.JSTOR283194.
  9. ^Plato 1924,p.393.
  10. ^"Aristophanes, Lysistrata, line 1247".www.perseus.tufts.edu.
  11. ^Pausanias,1.2.5 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.)
  12. ^Pausanias, 8.46.3
  13. ^Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 39. 3
  14. ^Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 29. 1
  15. ^abcdAhearne-Kroll, Stephen P. (April 2014). "Mnemosyne at the Asklepieia".Classical Philology.109(2): 99–118.doi:10.1086/675272.S2CID162319084.
  16. ^abvon Ehrenheim, Hedvig (2011).Greek incubation rituals in Classical and Hellenistic times.Stockholm: Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University.ISBN978-91-7447-335-3.
  17. ^Hesiod,Theogony132–138,337–411,453–520,901–906, 915–920;Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.
  18. ^Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as inHesiod,Theogony371–374,in theHomeric Hymnto Hermes(4),99–100,Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
  19. ^According toHesiod,Theogony507–511,Clymene, one of theOceanids,the daughters ofOceanusandTethys,atHesiod,Theogony351,was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according toApollodorus,1.2.3,another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.
  20. ^According toPlato,Critias,113d–114a,Atlas was the son ofPoseidonand the mortalCleito.
  21. ^InAeschylus,Prometheus Bound18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp.444–445 n. 2,446–447 n. 24,538–539 n. 113) Prometheus is made to be the son ofThemis.

Sources

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Further reading

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