Showing posts with label polymnia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label polymnia. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

who's polymnia?

POLYHYMNIA (or Polymnia) was one of the nine Mousai, the goddesses of music, song and dance. In Classical times--when the Mousai were assigned specific artistic and literary spheres--Polyhymnia was named Muse of religious hymns. In this guise she portrayed as a woman standing in a pensive or meditative. Her name was derived from the Greek words poly-, "many," and hymnos, "praise" or "hymn."

PARENTS
ZEUS & MNEMOSYNE (Hesiod Theogony 1, Apollodorus 1.13, Diodorus Siculus 4.7.1, Orphic Hymn 76)
ENCYCLOPEDIA

POLY′MNIA or POLYHY′MNIA (Polumnia), a daughter of Zeus, and one of the nine Muses. She presided over lyric poetry, and was believed to have invented the lyre. (Hes. Theog. 78; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iii. 1.) By Oeagrus she became the mother of Orpheus. (Schol. l. c. i. 23.) In works of art she was usually represented in a pensive attitude.

Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.