User:MnemosynesMusings

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The Muses dancing with Apollo, by Baldassare Peruzzi

Mnemosyne (Greek Mνημοσύνη), was the personification of memory in Greek mythology, and the mother of the nine Muses. After Zeus slept with Mnemosyne for nine consecutive nights, the nine muses were created by them. Mnemosyne was also the name for a river in Hades, counterpart to the river Lethe, according to a series of 4th century BC Greek funerary inscriptions in dactylic hexameter. Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. Initiates were encouraged to drink from the river Mnemosyne when they died, instead of Lethe. These inscriptions may have been connected with a private mystery religion, or with Orphic poetry.......Mnemosyne is also the name of a top class racehorse in the former prison colony of Australia.