Mnemosyne Mnemosyne Mnemosyne (; , ) is the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. "Mnemosyne" is derived from the same source as the word "mnemonic", that being the Greek word "mnēmē", which means "remembrance, memory". Mnemosyne is the mother of the nine Muses. A Titanide, or Titaness, Mnemosyne was the daughter of the Titans Uranus and Gaia. Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine Muses, fathered by her nephew, Zeus: In Hesiod’s "Theogony", kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech from their possession of Mnemosyne and their special relationship with the Muses. Zeus, in a form of a mortal
Titan (mythology) in their war against Zeus. Some scholars consider that Olympiodorus' report, the only surviving explicit expression of this mythic connection, embodied a tradition that dated to the Bronze Age, while Radcliffe Edmonds has suggested an element of innovative allegorized improvisation to suit Olympiodorus' purpose. Some 19th- and 20th-century scholars, including Jane Ellen Harrison, have argued that an initiatory or shamanic ritual underlies the myth of the dismemberment and cannibalism of Dionysus by the Titans. She also asserts that the word "Titan" comes from the Greek τίτανος, signifying white "earth, clay, or gypsum," and that the Titans were "white clay men",