Mnemosyne - the great goddess of memory of Ancient Hellas

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Scientists, historians, philosophers have always sought to preserve and study the memory of past times. In order to make new discoveries, you need to know the nature of things and phenomena. Knowledge always precedes knowledge. The human mind is the universal mind, it is able to master and realize everything. But in order to make discoveries, you need to have a base. The larger it is, the more room for improvement.

Gods in the life of Hellenes

The ancient Greeks knew this. No wonder the Hellenic culture gave humanity such a large number of wonderful monuments of literature and art. From antiquity, we got not only deep spiritual knowledge from the field of natural and human sciences, captured in literature, but also a material reflection of the highest civilization of that time. From the sixteenth century BC, the Hellenes professed polytheism, that is, polytheism. They built temples, set up altars, where they made sacrifices in the form of the best animals, selected fruits, as well as milk, cheese, wine, and expensive utensils. Sacrifices were offered as gratitude on the occasion of joyful events, whenthey wanted to be protected from danger or for a blessing for a new business. For the resolution of controversial issues, they also turned to the gods.

Gifts of Mnemosyne

In the pantheon, the goddess of memory, the Titanide Mnemosyne, was especially revered and loved. The legacy left by the ancient Greeks shows that the Hellenes were widely educated in a wide variety of sciences. Where did they draw their knowledge and inspiration for work from? Mnemosyne was a quick assistant in such cases. The daughter of Earth and Sky - Gaia and Uranus, she lived in the mountain world and knew earthly problems. The goddess of memory in Greek mythology had the ability to retrieve long-forgotten events from the past. She was also credited with the ability to foresee the future. This suggests that the inhabitants of Ancient Hellas understood the relationship between past and present events, as well as their influence on shaping the future. The goddess of memory gave names to objects and phenomena, and also streamlined them, led to a system. The art of memorization, called mnemonics, came to us just from those times. The Greek goddess of memory left a legacy that, without realizing it, we use to this day.

Muses are daughters of Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne conquered the passionate and loving Zeus with her beauty. He appeared to her in human form. The main god of Olympus seduced the Titanide, pretending to be a simple shepherd. For nine nights in a row, Zeus shared a bed with a beautiful goddess. The fruit of this union were nine muses - patronsuniversals, that is, arts. The legend says that the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne taught people to see and understand the beauty of the world around them, and their mother, the goddess of memory, helped to display their delight in an earthly, human incarnation. The Muses inherited from their father, an imperious, energetic and purposeful supreme god, traits such as enthusiasm, assertiveness, even, in a sense, obsession. Having chosen a suitable person for themselves, they endowed him with a talent that insistently demanded an outlet, realization, so to speak, inspired him with ideas. Then the Muses gave people access to their mother - Mnemosyne, from which they received the necessary knowledge to put these ideas into practice.

To find the answer, you need to forget too much

The ritual was performed as follows. In order to clear his mind of the superfluous, the oracle was washed by the water of the river of oblivion - Leta. This was followed by immersion in the waters of the Mnemosyne River. In the cave through which they flowed, a throne was built, which was invisibly occupied by the goddess of memory. Very often, during the action, the prophet was seized by horror, which released him only after a new immersion in Oblivion. After that, he could no longer remember and repeat what he said in a state of ecstasy. For this reason, the presence of third parties was necessary during the ritual. The goddess of memory in Greek mythology was in charge of not only remembering, but also forgetting. The ability to observe, fix minor and minor details, highlight the most significant, analyze, build the main storyline - this is what poets, actors, musicians, scientists and philosophers received from Mnemosyne.

The image of Mnemosyne in art

Of the ancient works of art depicting Mnemosyne, one can name an elegant marble statue kept in the Vatican and a mosaic panel made of multi-colored pieces of enamel depicting a scene from the myth of one of the most beautiful goddesses of antiquity. It is in the Antioch Museum of Greco-Roman Mosaics. Hesiod and Ovid preserved the memory of the goddess in their exquisite and refined verses.

In the new era, people of art also do not forget the legends about the goddess of reason and memories, as Mnemosyne is also called. Frederic Leighton depicted her seated on a throne in Mnemosyne, Mother of the Muses. She is wrapped in a loose toga, and on her head is a wreath of laurel leaves. Smooth lines, soft contours and a palette of warm shades of colors in his view best fit the image of a kind and wise mother of nine charming daughters. Her pensive and detached gaze seems to be directed through time and space to an unknown infinity.

On the canvas of the English Pre-Raphaelite Rossetti, the goddess of memory Mnemosyne stands in a light tunic of emerald color, which emphasizes the beauty of the golden-brown hair that once conquered Zeus. She has a memory lamp in her hand. Mnemosyne's green eyes calmly and intently look straight ahead, as if piercing right through you.

Maybe we shouldn't delve into distant history? The modern fast pace of life leaves little time for thoughtful contemplation. However, having discarded dilapidated artifacts as having lost their relevance, wewe risk at some point being plunged into the Stone Age, at the time of the birth of human civilization, and we will be forced to start re-acquiring the experience that we have very frivolously lost.