Mnemosyne, also known as Memory or in Latin term as Juno Moneta
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Show NotesNotes:
1. Mnemosyne was described as the daughter of Gaea or the daughter of union of Uranus(Hesiod) and Gaea or Aether and Gaea(Apollodorus, Hyginus).
2. According to almost all authors, Mnemosyne was the mother of Muses by Zeus who came to her place in Pieria to mate with her for nine nights(Hesiod). Calliope was born first, then Clio, Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, Terpsichore, Urania, Thalia, and Polymnia(Apollodorus). Alternatively, Muses were daughters of Uranus and Gaea(Alcman).
3. Mnemosyne was believed to be the inventress of speech and possesing the power of remembering the things that have already come to pass(Diodorus Siculus). She was credited for remembering(Alcman).
4. Muses seem to have special powers of tunning in with the souls of their favourite mortals and giving them wisdom and gracious words.
APOLLODORUS, LIBRARY, Book 1, translated by J. G. FRAZER
[1.1.3] And again he begat children by Earth, to wit, the Titans as they are named: Ocean, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Cronus; also daughters, the Titanides as they are called: Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Thia.
[1.3.1] Now Zeus wedded Hera and begat Hebe, Ilithyia, and Ares, but he had intercourse with many women, both mortals and immortals. By Themis, daughter of Sky, he had daughters, the Seasons, to wit, Peace, Order, and Justice; also the Fates, to wit, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropus; by Dione he had Aphrodite; by Eurynome, daughter of Ocean, he had the Graces, to wit, Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia; by Styx he had Persephone; and by Memory (Mnemosyne) he had the Muses, first Calliope, then Clio, Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, Terpsichore, Urania, Thalia, and Polymnia.
CLEMENT, RECOGNITIONS, Book 10, translated by REV. THOMAS SMITH
Chapter [17] - GENTILE COSMOGONY - From the heaven they say that six males were produced, whom they call Titans; and in like manner, from the earth six females, whom they called Titanides. And these are the names of the males who sprang from the heaven: Oceanus, Coeus, Crios, Hyperion, Iapetus, Chronos, who amongst us is called Saturn. In like manner, the names of the females who sprang from the earth are these: Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Tethys, Hebe [Phoebe].
Chapter [22] - VILE TRANSFORMATION OF JUPITER - Mnemosyne, being changed into a shepherd, of whom were born the nine Muses
Chapter [31] - HESIOD COMOGONY - But to this Hesiod adds, that after chaos the heaven and the earth were made immediately, from which he says that those eleven were produced (and sometimes also he speaks of them as twelve) of whom he makes six males and five females. And these are the names that he gives to the males: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Chronos, who is also called Saturn. Also the names of the females are: Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Tethys. And these names they thus interpret allegorically. They say that the number is eleven or twelve: that the first is nature itself, which also they would have to be called Rhea, from Flowing; and they say that the other ten are her accidents, which also they call qualities; yet they add a twelfth, namely Chronos, who with us is called Saturn, and him they take to be time. Therefore they assert that Saturn and Rhea are time and matter; and these, when they are mixed with moisture and dryness, heat and cold, produce all things.
DIODORUS SICULUS, LIBRARY OF HISTORY, Book 5, translated by C. H. OLDFATHER
[5.66.3] The males were Cronus, Hyperion, Coeus, Iapetus, Crius, and Oceanus, and their sisters were Rhea, Themis, Mnemosynê, Phoebê, and Tethys. Each one of them was the discoverer of things of benefit to mankind, and because of the benefaction they conferred upon all men they were accorded honours and everlasting fame.
[5.67.3] Of the female Titans they say that Mnemosynê discovered the uses of the power of reason, and that she gave a designation to every object about us by means of the names which we use to express whatever we would and to hold conversation one with another; though there are those who attribute these discoveries to Hermes. And to this goddess is also attributed the power to call things to memory and to remembrance (mnemê) which men possess, and it is this power which gave her the name she received.
LYRA GRAECA I ALCMAN, translated by J. M. EDMONDS
FRAGMENT 110 - Diodorus of Sicily Historical Library 4. 7 :
For most of the mythologists, and these the most approved, say that the Muses are the daughters of Zeus and Memory, but a few of the poets, and among these Alcman, represent them as daughters of Heaven and Earth.FRAGMENT 124 - Etymologicum Gudianum : mnêmê, “Memory”:
Alcman calls her...she that looks with the mind; for we view the past with the eye of the intellect.HESIOD, THEOGONY, translated by H. G. EVELYN-WHITE
[53] Them in Pieria did Mnemosyne (Memory), who reigns over the hills of Eleuther, bear of union with the father, the son of Cronos, a forgetting of ills and a rest from sorrow. For nine nights did wise Zeus lie with her, entering her holy bed remote from the immortals. And when a year was passed and the seasons came round as the months waned, and many days were accomplished, she bare nine daughters, all of one mind, whose hearts are set upon song and their spirit free from care, a little way from the topmost peak of snowy Olympus.
[75] These things, then, the Muses sang who dwell on Olympus, nine daughters begotten by great Zeus, Cleio and Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene and Terpsichore, and Erato and Polyhymnia and Urania and Calliope, who is the chiefest of them all, for she attends on worshipful princes: whomsoever of heaven-nourished princes the daughters of great Zeus honour, and behold him at his birth, they pour sweet dew upon his tongue, and from his lips flow gracious words.
[127] And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.
[915] And again, he loved Mnemosyne with the beautiful hair: and of her the nine gold-crowned Muses were born who delight in feasts and the pleasures of song.
HOMERIC HYMNS, Hymn to Hermes, translated by H. G. EVELYN-WHITE
[422] Then the son of Maia, harping sweetly upon his lyre, took courage and stood at the left hand of Phoebus Apollo; and soon, while he played shrilly on his lyre, he lifted up his voice and sang, and lovely was the sound of his voice that followed. He sang the story of the deathless gods and of the dark earth, how at the first they came to be, and how each one received his portion. First among the gods he honoured Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, in his song; for the son of Maia was of her following
HYGINUS, FABULAE, translated by MARY GRANT
From Aether and Earth: Grief, Deceit, Wrath, Lamentation, Falsehood, Oath, Vengeance, Intemperance, Altercation, Forgetfulness, Sloth, Fear, Pride, Incest, Combat, Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion, and Polus, Saturn, Ops, Moneta, Dione; and three Furies – namely, Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone.
From Jove and Moneta, the Muses.
ORPHIC HYMNS, Hymn to Musaeus, translated by THOMAS TAYLOR
To Juno [Hera] sacred, and to Mem'ry [Mnemosyne] fair, and the chaste Muses I address my pray'r;The various year, the Graces [Kharites], and the Hours [Horai],fair-hair'd Latona [Leto], and Dione's pow'rs;Armed Curetes, household Gods [Korybantes, Kouretes, Kabeiroi] I call,with those [Soteroi] who spring from Jove [Zeus] the king of all:Th' Idæan Gods, the angel of the skies, and righteous Themis, with sagacious eyes;With ancient Night [Nyx], and Day-light [Hemara] I implore,and Faith [Pistis], and Justice [Dike] dealing right adore;Saturn [Kronos] and Rhea, and great Thetis too, hid in a veil of bright celestial blue:I call great Ocean [Okeanos], and the beauteous train of nymphs, who dwell in chambers of the main;Atlas the strong, and ever in its prime, vig'rous Eternity [Aion], and endless Time [Khronos];The Stygian pool [Styx], and placid Gods [Meilikhoi] beside,and various Genii [Daimones], that o'er men preside;Illustrious Providence [Pronoia], the noble train of dæmon forms, who fill th' ætherial plain;Or live in air, in water, earth, or fire, or deep beneath the solid ground retire.
ORPHIC HYMNS, Hymn to the Muses, translated by THOMAS TAYLOR
Daughters of Jove [Zeus and Mnemosyne], dire-sounding and divine, renown'd Pierian, sweetly speaking Nine;
ORPHIC HYMNS, Hymn to the Mnemosyne, or the goddess of memory, translated by THOMAS TAYLOR
The Fumigation from Frankincense.
The consort I invoke of Jove [Zeus] divine, source of the holy, sweetly-speaking Nine;
Free from th' oblivion of the fallen mind, by whom the soul with intellect is join'd:
Reason's increase, and thought to thee belong, all-powerful, pleasant, vigilant, and strong:
'Tis thine, to waken from lethargic rest all thoughts deposited within the breast;
And nought neglecting, vigorous to excite the mental eye from dark oblivion's night.
Come, blessed power, thy mystic's mem'ry wake to holy rites, and Lethe's fetters break.OVID FASTI, Book 1, translated by JAMES G. FRAZER
[637] Fair goddess, thee the next morning set in thy snow-white fane, where high Moneta lifts her steps sublime: well shalt thou, Concord, o’ersee the Latin throng, now that consecrated hands have stablished thee. Furius the vanquisher of the Etruscan folk, had vowed the ancient temple, and he kept his vow. The cause was that the common folk had taken up arms and seceded from the nobles, and Rome dreaded her own puissance. The recent cause was better: Germany presented her dishevelled locks at thy command, leader revered; hence didst thou offer the spoil of the vanquished people, and didst build a temple to that goddess whom thou thyself dost worship. That goddess thy mother did stablish both by her life and by an altar, she who alone was found worthy to share the bed of mighty Jupiter.
OVID FASTI, Book 6, translated by JAMES G. FRAZER
[183] They say, too, that the temple of Juno Moneta was founded in fulfilment of thy vow, Camillus, on the summit of the citadel: formerly it had been in the house of Manlius, who once protected Capitoline Jupiter against the Gallic arms. Great gods, how well had it been for him if in that fight he had fallen in defence of thy throne, O Jupiter on high! He lived to perish, condemned on a charge of aiming at the crown: that was the title that length of years reserved for him.
PAUSANIAS DESCRIPTION OF GREECE, Book 1, translated by W. H. S. JONES
[1.2.5] One of the porticoes contains shrines of gods, and a gymnasium called that of Hermes. In it is the house of Pulytion, at which it is said that a mystic rite was performed by the most notable Athenians, parodying the Eleusinian mysteries. But in my time it was devoted to the worship of Dionysus. This Dionysus they call Melpomenus (Minstrel), on the same principle as they call Apollo Musegetes (Leader of the Muses). Here there are images of Athena Paeonia (Healer), of Zeus, of Mnemosyne (Memory) and of the Muses, an Apollo, the votive offering and work of Eubulides, and Acratus, a daemon attendant upon Apollo; it is only a face of him worked into the wall. After the precinct of Apollo is a building that contains earthen ware images, Amphictyon, king of Athens, feasting Dionysus and other gods. Here also is Pegasus of Eleutherae, who introduced the god to the Athenians. Herein he was helped by the oracle at Delphi, which called to mind that the god once dwelt in Athens in the days of Icarius.