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Urania (mythology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Greek mythology, Urania (/jʊəˈrniə/ yoor-AY-nee-ə; Ancient Greek: Οὐρανία or Οὐρανίη Ouranía means 'heavenly') may refer to the following divinities:

  • Urania, the Oceanid with a 'divine in form'. She was one of the 3,000 water-nymph daughters of the Titans Oceanus and his sister-spouse Tethys.[1][2] Along with her sisters, Urania was one of the companions of Persephone when the daughter of Demeter was abducted by Hades.[3]
  • Urania, one of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and the Titaness Mnemosyne.[4]
  • Urania, a surname of Aphrodite, describing her as "the heavenly," or spiritual, to distinguish her from Aphrodite Pandemos. Plato represents her as a daughter of Uranus, begotten without a mother.[5] Wine was not used in the libations offered to her. The tortoise, the symbol of domestic modesty and chastity, was sacred to her.[6]

Notes

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  1. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 350
  2. ^ Kerényi, Carl (1951). The Gods of the Greeks. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 40.
  3. ^ Homeric Hymn to Demeter 423
  4. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 78; Ovid, Fasti 5.55
  5. ^ Plato, Symposium p. 180; Xenophon, Symposium 8.9
  6. ^ Herodotus, 1.105; Scholiast on Sophocles' Oedipus Colonus 101; Suda s.v. νηφάλια

References

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