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A-gnosis — Mnemosyne
#greekmythology #mnemosyne
Published: 2014-12-06 13:28:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 4079; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 0
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Memory hates oblivion--so she gave birth to song! Powerful song that chants of men and deeds! Song makes mortals happy on the narrow strand of life. Afterward, song flashes like a beacon above death's great dark ocean, born onward by memory through countless years. Song will be your greatest honor, Achilles... And my final consolation.Thetis to Achilles
Age of Bronze, Betrayal part 1 by Eric Shanower
Mnemosyne, the Titan goddess of memory. Before the invention of writing, and before the ability to read and write became more widespread, the stories of gods and heroes were passed down orally through song. It makes perfect sense then that Mnemosyne was the mother of the Muses. Zeus stayed with her for nine nights and then she gave birth to nine daughters, all with a talent for song and music.
However, some of the early Greek poets say the the Muses were daughters of Gaia and Ouranos and some say that there were only three of them. Their names were Melete (Practise), Aiode (Song) and Mneme (Memory, maybe the same as Mnemosyne). This led to the assumption that these three were the older Titan Muses who later was replaced with the nine younger Muses.
...When I want to show that a god is quite ancient, I always give them a Minoan/Mycenaean look.
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Comments: 8
So that's how she looks like (in your version)? Fair enough, and it works. Also, in some works - I think - she gave birth to the Sirens too, but I'm not sure.
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Thanks!
Hm, the Sirens were sometimes said to be daughters of Melpomene or Terpsichore (two of the Muses). So Mnemosyne could be their grandmother.
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That is exactly what she is doing.
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You know, I'm attending a class about aegean antiquities, so we study the prehistory of Cyclades, Hellas, and Crete, and every time I see Minoan artifacts (we haven't done Mycenaeans yet) I think about your drawings!
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Really?
That sounds like a very interesting class.
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Oh yes it is! Yet we're only four students attending it this year...which is better because the professor makes us talk and asks us to analyze artifacts, make hypothesis and so on. Last week he showed us a picture of the 'snake goddess' figurine (the Minoan one with bare breasts and with her arms up holding snakes) and I immediately thought about your Persephone! He told us that it's probably one of the proofs there were extatic rituals and cults in Minoan Crete whose residuals are perhaps to see in the bacchic cult of Dionysos...which is really intriguing especially because I want to do my thesis on Dionysos and the dionysian, a mixture of literary and anthropologic interpretations (I mainly study literature, but I have a deep interest for anthropology as well).
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Oh, I wish there had been classes like this available at the university where I was studying. The history classes I had included basic world history and the history of Sweden. Not that it wasn't interesting, but I would have loved to specialize on the ancient Mediterranean cultures.
I studied history of literature as well. When we were supposed to write an essay of three pages as part of the exam for the literature of Antiquity and the Middle Ages class, I chose to make a comparison between the description of Hell in the Bible and the depiction of Hell in Dante's Divina Commedia. When I told one of my classmates what I was going to write about, she said: "Wow. That's gonna get you good grades". And it did.
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