A few days back I mentioned Mnemosyne, a Titan Goddess who my friend Rena said she was researching.
Mnemosyne is best remembered as being the mother of the nine Muses in Greek mythology. Zeus, before he took Hera for a wife, spent nine consecutive nights sleeping with Mnemosyne, and as time passed she gave birth to nine daughters – the Muses. However she had a much more important place that just ‘mother’.
Mnemosyne was a golden-gowned, beautiful haired Titan with a glorious headdress. She discovered the use of reason and gave names to everything – without names very little could be expressed and mortals would not be able to talk to each other. But most important of all she gave mortals the power of memory. Without which they would not remember the names of things. Without which they would not remember who or what they were. They would not be able to remember who their loved ones were. It would be impossible to survive without memory. All knowledge is inseparable from memory.
Mnemosyne is also the name of a river in Hades, along with the river Lethe. Dead souls drank from Lethe so when they were reincarnated they would not remember their past lives. Initiates were encouraged to drink from Mnemosyne rather than Lethe, Mnemosyne being the river of memory.
Thinking about Mnemosyne got me remembering (ha ha ha!) a book I was given when I was little … “The Story of Persephone” by Penelope Farmer and illustrated by Graham McCallum. I still have this book and treasure it, not because of the story but because the illustrations are so glorious.
This story is the myth of how the seasons come to change. Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the Goddess of the Corn Harvest and fertility (Zeus sure did get around). Demeter, gold like the sun, and the beautiful spring-like Persephone lived happily in perpetual spring and summer. Until Hades, the God of the Underworld took a liking to Persephone and carried her off in his chariot to the underworld to be his Queen. Demeter grieved and despaired at the loss of her daughter to Hades, and with her grief the land became cold and barren – turning into winter.
Demeter and Hades fought over Persephone until Zeus was forced to intervene. He told the two that if Persephone has eaten of a pomegranate than Demeter may take her for six months, after which she is to come back to Hades. Persephone, whose beauty was now cold and terrible, had in fact eaten of a pomegranate and Demeter took her by the and and led her from the Underworld.
With her daughter now by her side, Demeter was joyful, and allowed the plants and crops to once again grow and flourish, turning from winter to spring. Spring turned to summer, and eventually Hades came to collect his Queen. Demeter once again despaired and the land turns wintry. Thus this is a story of how the world blossoms and dies in cycles.
Below are pictures of the cover and a couple of the illustrations from this book. They are of course nothing compared to the real deal unfortunately. My scanner is only A4 size so I took to nicking images from ebay instead 🙂
