In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion, Mnemosyne (; , ) is the Greek god of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of the Titans, the twelve divine children of the earth-goddess Gaia and the sky-god Uranus. The term Mnemosyne is derived from the same source as the word mnemonic, that being the Greek word mnēmē, which means "remembrance, memory".[ Memory and the name Memnon, as in "Memnon of Rhodes" are etymologically related. Mnemosyne is sometimes confused with Mneme or compared with Memoria.]
Family
A Titaness, Mnemosyne is the daughter of Uranus and Gaia.
[Hesiod, Theogony 135; Diodorus Siculus, 5.66.3; Clement of Alexandria, Recognitions 31.] Mnemosyne became the mother of the nine
, fathered by her nephew,
Zeus:
Hyginus in his Fabulae gives Mnemosyne a different parentage, where she was the daughter of Zeus and Clymene.[Hyginus, Fabulae Preface]
Mythology
In
Hesiod's
Theogony, 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 nine
. Mnemosyne also presided over a pool
[Richard Janko, "Forgetfulness in the Golden Tablets of Memory", Classical Quarterly 34 (1984) 89–100; see article "Totenpass" for the reconstructed Devotional medal which instructs the initiated soul through the landscape of Hades, including the pool of Memory.] 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
metempsychosis. In Orphism, the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop the transmigration of the soul.
Appearance in oral literature
Although she was categorized as one of the
Titans in the
Theogony, Mnemosyne did not quite fit that distinction.
Titans were hardly worshiped in
Ancient Greece, and were thought of as so archaic as to belong to the ancient past.
They resembled historical figures more than anything else. Mnemosyne, on the other hand, traditionally appeared in the first few lines of many oral
—she appears in both the
Iliad and the
Odyssey, 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" because
memory was so important and basic to the
oral tradition of the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks of
civilization in their
creation myth.
Later, once literature overtook the oral recitation of epics, Plato made reference in his Euthydemus to the older tradition of invoking Mnemosyne. The character Socrates prepares to recount a story and says "ὥστ᾽ ἔγωγε, καθάπερ οἱ (275d) ποιηταί, δέομαι ἀρχόμενος τῆς διηγήσεως Μούσας τε καὶ Μνημοσύνην ἐπικαλεῖσθαι." which translates to "Consequently, like the poets, I must needs begin my narrative with an invocation of the and Memory" (emphasis added). Aristophanes also harked back to the tradition in his play Lysistrata when a drunken ambassador invokes her name while prancing around pretending to be a bard from times of yore.
Cult
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 in
Livadeia in
Boeotia, at
Mount Helicon in Boeotia, and in the cult of
Asclepius.
There was a statue of Mnemosyne in the shrine of Dionysos at Athens, alongside the statues of the Muses, Zeus and Apollo,[Pausanias, 1.2.5 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.)] as well as a statue with her daughters the Muses in the Temple of Athena Alea.[Pausanias, 8.46.3] Pausanias described the worship of Mnemosyne in Lebadeia in Boeotia, where she played an important part in the oracular sanctuary of Trophonios:
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:
Cult of Asclepius
Mnemosyne was one of the
deities worshiped in the cult of
Asclepius that formed in
Ancient Greece around the 5th century BC.
, a Greek hero and god of medicine, 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.
The exact order of the
sacrifice and
varied by location,
and the supplicant often made an offering to Mnemosyne.
After making an offering to
Asclepius himself, in some locations, one last prayer was said to Mnemosyne as the supplicant moved to the holiest portion of the
Asclepeion to incubate.
The hope was that a prayer to Mnemosyne would help the supplicant remember any visions had while
there.
Genealogy
See also
Sources
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Aeschylus, Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliants. Prometheus Bound. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library No. 145. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2009. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
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Anonymous, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). .
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Clement of Alexandria, Recognitions from Ante-Nicene Library Volume 8 , translated by Smith, Rev. Thomas. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. 1867. Online version at theio.com
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Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History. Translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Online version at the Lacus Curtius: Into the Roman World.
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Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Ovid, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More (1859–1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
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Further reading
External links
