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Mnemosyne

 
(nĭ-mŏs'ə-nē, -mŏz'-) pronunciation
n. Greek Mythology
The goddess of memory, mother of the Muses.

[Greek Mnēmosunē, from mnēmosunē, memory, from mnēmē.]


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Mnēmosynē, in Greek myth, a Titan goddess, a personification of Memory, and the mother, by Zeus, of the Muses.

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Mnemosyne (nēmŏs'ĭnē, nēmŏz'-), in Greek mythology, the personification of memory. She was a Titan, daughter of Uranus and Gaea. The Muses were her daughters by Zeus.


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Mnemosyne (1881), a Pre-Raphaelite interpretation of the goddess by Dante Gabriel Rossetti[1]

Mnemosyne (play /nɨˈmɒzɨn/ or /nɨˈmɒsɨni/; Greek: Mνημοσύνη, pronounced [mnɛːmosýːnɛː]), source of the word mnemonic,[2] was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. This titaness was the daughter of Gaia and Uranus and the mother of the nine Muses by Zeus:

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 and Mnemosyne slept together for nine consecutive nights and thereby created the nine Muses. Mnemosyne also presided over a pool[3] in Hades, 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. Initiates were encouraged to drink from the river Mnemosyne when they died, instead of Lethe. These inscriptions may have been connected with Orphic poetry (see Zuntz, 1971).

Similarly, those who wished to consult the oracle of Trophonius in Boeotia were made to drink alternately from two springs called "Lethe" and "Mnemosyne". An analogous setup is described in the Myth of Er at the end of Plato's Republic.

References

Notes

  1. ^ Collection of the Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, Rossetti Archive.
  2. ^ Memory and the name Memnon, as in "Memnon of Rhodes" are etymologically related. Mnemosyne is sometimes confused with Mneme or compared with Memoria.
  3. ^ Richard Janko, “Forgetfulness in the Golden Tablets of Memory,” Classical Quarterly 34 (1984) 89–100; see article "Totenpass" for the reconstructed devotional which instructs the initiated soul through the landscape of Hades, including the pool of Memory.

See also


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Greek Mythology
www.pantheon.org
 
 
 
Related topics:
Terpsichore (dance)
urania
Muse (Greek Mythology Any of the nine daughters)

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American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
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