Mene (goddess)
Mene (
romanized: Mḗnē, lit. '"moon, month"', pronounced [mɛ̌ːnɛː]), in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, is an epithet of Selene, the Greek lunar goddess as a goddess presiding over the months.[1]
Etymology
The Greek word μήνη (mēnē) means both the
."William Smith writes of Mene as "a goddess presiding over the months".[5] Apostolos Athanassakis and Benjamin Wolkow speculate that Selene's name, which is derived from the word σέλας (selas, "light") and thus means "luminous one", might have originally developed as a euphemism, before becoming the Moon and its goddess's proper name.
See also
- Proto-Indo-European religion
- Proto-Indo-European language
- H2éwsōs
Notes
- ^ Hard, p. 46; Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. Selene; Smith, s.v. Selene.
- ^ Athanassakis and Wolkow, pp. 90, on lines 1–2, 91, on line 5; Kerényi, p. 197
- ^ Beekes 2009, p. 945.
- ^ Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. Selene; Kerényi, p. 197.
- ^ Smith, s.v. "Mene"
References
- .
- Beekes, R. S. P. (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden: Brill. p. 1:945.
- Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books.
- Kerényi, Karl (1951), The Gods of the Greeks, Thames and Hudson, London, 1951. Internet Archive.
- Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Mene"