Mnemosine

Mnemosine (AFI: /mneˈmɔzine/; in greco antico: Μνημοσύνη, Mnemosùne) è un personaggio della mitologia greca, figlia di Urano (il cielo) e di Gea (la terra).
A questa dea fu attribuita la personificazione della memoria ed il potere di ricordare.

Genealogia

Mnemosine fu amata da Zeus, il quale le si presentò sotto forma di pastore. Giacquero insieme per nove notti sui monti della Pieria e dopo un anno Mnemosine partorì le Muse.

Mitologia

Diodoro Siculo scrive che fu lei a scoprire il potere della memoria e che diede i nomi a molti degli oggetti e dei concetti utilizzati per far sì che i mortali si comprendano mentre dialogano e specifica che siano anche persone che attribuiscono queste scoperte ad Ermes.
Secondo Pausania, in Beozia si trovava l'antro di Trofonio che era uno degli accessi agli Inferi e dove per entrare era necessario prima bere da due fontane. La prima, intitolata a Lete (la dimenticanza), faceva scordare le cose passate mentre l'altra, intitolata a Mnemosine, consentiva di ricordare ciò che si sarebbe visto nell'aldilà.

Mosaico de pared con la representación de Mnemósine, madre de las nueve musas. Siglo II. Se expone en el Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona.

Mnemosyne (/nɪˈmɒzɪni, nɪˈmɒsɪni/; Greek: Μνημοσύνη, pronounced [mnɛːmosýːnɛː]) is the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. "Mnemosyne" is derived from the same source as the word mnemonic, that being the Greek word mnēmē, which means "remembrance, memory".
Mnemosyne is the mother of the nine Muses.

Family

A Titanide, or Titaness, Mnemosyne was the daughter of the Titans Uranus and Gaia. Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine Muses, fathered by her nephew, Zeus:

Calliope (epic poetry)
Clio (history)
Euterpe (music)
Erato (lyric poetry)
Melpomene (tragedy)
Polyhymnia (hymns)
Terpsichore (dance)
Thalia (comedy)
Urania (astronomy)

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 a form of a mortal shepherd, and Mnemosyne slept together for nine consecutive nights, thus conceiving the nine Muses. Mnemosyne also presided over a pool 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. 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 epic poems—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 he was about to recite. Mnemosyne is thought to have been given the distinction of “Titan” because memory was so important and basic to the oral culture of the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks of civilization in their creation myth.
Later, once written 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 Muses and Memory” (emphasis added). Aristophanes also harked back to the tradition in his play Lysistrata when a drunken Spartan 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 Lebadeia 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, as well as a statue with her daughters the Muses in the Temple of Athena Alea. Pausanias described the worship of Mnemosyne in Lebadeia in Boeotia, where she played an important part in the oracular sanctuary of Trophonios:

"[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."

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."

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. Asclepius, 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 offerings and prayers 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 sleeping there.

Genealogy

Mnemosyne's family tree

Uranus

Gaia

Pontus

Oceanus

Tethys

Hyperion

Theia

Crius

Eurybia

The Rivers

The Oceanids

Helios

Selene

Eos

Astraeus

Pallas

Perses

Cronus

Rhea

Coeus

Phoebe

Hestia

Hera

Hades

Zeus

Leto

Asteria

Demeter

Poseidon

Iapetus

Clymene (or Asia)

MNEMOSYNE

(Zeus)

Themis

Atlas

Menoetius

Prometheus

Epimetheus

The Muses

The Horae

Mnemosyne (color) Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

between circa 1876 and circa 1881

MNEMOSYNE. Antioch mosaics in the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. The museum permits photography and does not restrict usage of the photographs.

Roman mosaics dating between 2nd and 4th centuries AD, excavated at Antioch, Turkey, in the 1930s; I took this photograph. - Roman mosaics dating between 2nd and 4th centuries AD, excavated at Antioch, Turkey, in the 1930s; I took this photograph

Júpiter y Mnemosine by Marco Liberi

Jupiter, disguised as a shepherd, tempts Mnemosyne, goddess of memory by Jacob de Wit (1727)

Jacob de Wit - http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/SK-A-3886

Jupiter en Mnemosyne. In een landschap maakt Jupiter, vermomd als een herder, Mnemosyne het hof. Zijn attribuut, een adelaar, vliegt boven het tafereel. Links putti met de kudde schapen. Behoort bij SK-A-3885. Onderdeel van een kamerdecoratie geschilderd in opdracht van Jan Baptist de Surmont, heer van Vlooswijk, voor zijn huis te Loenen aan de Vecht.

Parnasus

This painting was a sketch for Mengs's fresco of 1761 in the central part of the ceiling of the Villa Albani in Rome, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Albani.

Anton Raphael Mengs - 1. safran-arts.com 2./3. Unknown 4. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Mnemosyne

Granite sculpture by Fredrik K.B. www.fredrik-kb.com

Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne & The Structure of Time

by iNsCissorS

Mnemosine

Artist not known, Statue of Mnemosyne (date not known), memorial to lives lost in World War I, Bell Block, New Plymouth, New Zealand. Image by kiwinz

Mnemosine e as Musas

Mnemosyne

by Michele-lee Phelan

Mnemósine

Memento Mori v2 by chenoasart

© 2009 Chenoasart
Memento Mori v2, created in PS CS3 Extended, this piece was inspired by the Greek Goddess Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory, and by the song Memories by Within Temptation.

"Mnemosyne (sometimes confused with Mneme or compared with Memoria) was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. This titaness was the daughter of Gaia and Uranus and the mother of the 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 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.

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." --Wikipedia

Mnemosine e as Musas

“Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory” by Thomas Dodd

Portrait Of Mnemosyne

Senhora da Memória

Mnemosyne, mother of the MUSES. Painting by C. Parada (1989)

The Muse Mnemosyne. Vatican. Otto Seemann, Grekernas och romarnes mytologi (1881).

Mnemósine, la diosa de la memoria

Mnemosyne goddess of memory, Greco-Roman Antioch mosaic C2nd A.D., Hatay Archeology Museum

Symbols of Mnemosyne and the nine Muses, Greek mosaic from Elis C1st B.C., Archaeological Museum of Elis

Mnemosyne Goddess Of Memory II

by Derek Van Derven

anime

'MNEMOSYNE: THE LAMP OF MEMORY'
Painting, 39.4 H x 39.4 W x 1.6 in
Claire Milner
United Kingdom

KayshaSiemens_Mnemosyne

Oil and 24k gold leaf on board
14 x 18 inches
2018

Mnemosyne 1918 Original wood engraving by Frederick Carter and W.M.R. Quick. Signed in pencil. S 260 x 205 mm; I 114 x 54 mm

Mnemosyne

josephdeiss

Mnemosyne by Katrina-Chiu

Mnemosyne was the personification of memory in Greek mythology.

"Mnemosyne I call, the Queen, consort of Zeus, Mother of the sacred, holy and sweet-voiced Muses. Ever alien to her is evil oblivion that harms the mind, she holds all things together in the same dwelling place, in the mind and soul of mortals, she strengthens the powerful ability of humans to think.

Most sweet, vigilant, she reminds us of all the thoughts that each one of us is for ever storing in our hearts, overlooking nothing, rousing everyone to consciousness. But, blessed goddess, awaken for the initiates the memory of the sacred rite, and ward off forgetfulness from them."