Jupiter, disguised as a shepherd, tempts Mnemosyne byJacob 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 inscriptions indactylic hexameter. Dead souls drank fromLethe so 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]
Although she was categorized as one of theTitans in 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 theIliad and 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" becausememory was so important and basic to theoral culture of the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks ofcivilization in theircreation myth.[8]
Later, oncewritten literature overtook the oral recitation of epics,Plato made reference in hisEuthydemus to the older tradition of invoking Mnemosyne. The characterSocrates prepares to recount a story and says "ὥστ᾽ ἔγωγε, καθάπερ οἱ (275d) ποιηταί, δέομαι ἀρχόμενος τῆς διηγήσεως Μούσας τε καὶΜνημοσύνην ἐπικαλεῖσθαι." which translates to "Consequently, like the poets, I must needs begin my narrative with an invocation of theMuses andMemory" (emphasis added).[9]Aristophanes also harked back to the tradition in his playLysistrata when adrunkenSpartanambassador invokes her name while prancing around pretending to be a bard from times of yore.[10]
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 inLebadeia inBoeotia, atMount Helicon in 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]Pausanias described 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]
Mnemosyne was one of thedeities worshiped in thecult ofAsclepius that formed inAncient Greece around the 5th century BC.[15]Asclepius, aGreek hero andgod ofmedicine, 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 theofferings andprayers varied by location,[16] and the supplicant often made an offering to Mnemosyne.[15] After making an offering toAsclepius himself, in some locations, one last prayer was said to Mnemosyne as the supplicant moved to the holiest portion of theAsclepeion toincubate.[15] The hope was that a prayer to Mnemosyne would help the supplicant remember anyvisions had whilesleeping there.[16]
^Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). Jones, Sir Henry Stuart; McKenzie, Roderick (eds.)."μνήμη".A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved2018-01-10.
^Memory and the nameMemnon, as in "Memnon of Rhodes" are etymologically related. Mnemosyne is sometimes confused withMneme or compared withMemoria.
^Richard Janko, "Forgetfulness in the Golden Tablets of Memory",Classical Quarterly 34 (1984) 89–100; see article "Totenpass" for the reconstructeddevotional which instructs the initiated soul through the landscape ofHades, including the pool of Memory.
^abRose, H.J. (1991).A Handbook of Greek Mythology : including its extension to Rome (6th ed.). London: Taylor and Francis, Inc.ISBN9780415046015.
^abNotopoulos, James A. (1938). "Mnemosyne in Oral Literature".Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.69: 466.doi:10.2307/283194.JSTOR283194.
^abcdAhearne-Kroll, Stephen P. (April 2014). "Mnemosyne at the Asklepieia".Classical Philology.109 (2):99–118.doi:10.1086/675272.S2CID162319084.
^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.
^Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as inHesiod,Theogony371–374, in theHomeric Hymn to Hermes (4),99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
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.
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.
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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