Urania depicted with a celestial globe with stars above her head.Allegorical Portrait of Urania, Muse of Astronomy byLouis Tocqué.
Urania is often associated with Universal Love. Sometimes identified as the eldest of the divine sisters, Urania inherited Zeus' majesty and power and the beauty and grace of her motherMnemosyne.
Urania dresses in a cloak embroidered with stars and keeps her eyes and attention focused on theHeavens. She is usually represented with acelestial globe to which she points with a little staff,[7] and depicted inmodern art with stars above her head. She is able to foretell the future by the arrangement of the stars.[8]
Urania, a restored Roman copy after a Greek original of the 4th century BC,Hadrian's Villa.
Those who are most concerned with philosophy and the heavens are dearest to her. Those who have been instructed by her she raises aloft to heaven, for it is a fact that imagination and the power of thought lift men's souls to heavenly heights.[9]
Urania, o'er her star-bespangled lyre, With touch of majesty diffused her soul; A thousand tones, that in the breast inspire, Exalted feelings, o er the wires'gan roll— How at the call of Jove the mist unfurled, And o'er the swelling vault—the glowing sky, The new-born stars hung out their lamps on high, And rolled their mighty orbs to music's sweetest sound.
During theRenaissance, Urania began to be considered the Muse for Christian poets.[10] In the invocation to Book 7 ofJohn Milton'sepic poemParadise Lost, the poet invokes Urania to aid his narration of the creation of the cosmos, though he cautions that it is "[t]he meaning, not the name I call" (7.5).
The official seal of theU.S. Naval Observatory portrays Urania. Hr. Ms.Urania is a sail training vessel for theRoyal Netherlands Naval College. There has been aHr. Ms. Urania in the Royal Netherlands Navy since 1832.
Ovid,Ovid's Fasti: With an English translation by Sir James George Frazer, London, William Heinemann Ltd.; Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1959.Internet Archive.
