Perse | |
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Member of the Oceanids | |
Abode | Ocean |
Personal information | |
Parents | Oceanus and Tethys |
Siblings | Oceanids, Potamoi |
Consort | Helios |
Children | Circe, Aeëtes, Pasiphaë, Perses, Aloeus |
Greek deities series |
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Water deities |
Nymphs |
In Greek mythology, Perse (Ancient Greek: Πέρση, romanized: Pérsē, lit. 'destroyer') is one of the 3,000 Oceanids, water-nymph daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys.[1][2][3] Her name was also spelled as Persa, Perseide, Persea[4] or Perseis (Περσηίς, Persēís).[5] Perse married Helios, the god of the sun, and bore him several children, most notably the sorceress-goddess Circe.
Perse was one of the wives of the sun god, Helios.[6][7] According to Homer and Hesiod, with Helios she had Circe and Aeëtes,[8] with later authors also mentioning their children Pasiphaë,[9] Perses,[10] Aloeus,[11] and even Calypso,[11] who is however more commonly the daughter of Atlas. It is not clear why Perse bore Helios, the source of all light, such dark and mysterious children.[12]
When Aphrodite cursed Helios to fall in love with the mortal princess Leucothoe, he is said to have forgotten about Perse.[13] She seems to have been linked to witchcraft and knowledge of herbs and potions, much like her daughters Circe and Pasiphaë.[14] She might have also been associated with the witchcraft goddess Hecate, who was also called Perseis (as in "daughter of Perses")[15][16] and who is said to be Circe's mother in one version.[17][18]
Perseis' name has been linked to Περσίς (Persís), "female Persian", and πέρθω (pérthō), "destroy" or "slay" or "plunder".[citation needed]
Kerenyi also noted the connection between her and Hecate due to their names, denoting a chthonic aspect of the nymph, as well as that of Persephone, whose name "can be taken to be a longer, perhaps simply a more ceremonious, form of Perse",[19] as did Fowler, who noted that the pairing made sense given Hecate's association with the Moon.[20] It has been suggested that Hecate's "Perseis" epithet denotes lunar connections.[21] However, as Mooney notes, there is no evidence that Perse was ever a moon goddess on her own right.[22]
An inscription of Mycenaean Greek (written in Linear B) was found on a tablet from Pylos, dating back to 1400–1200 BC. John Chadwick reconstructed[n 1] the name of a goddess, *Preswa who could be identified with Perse. Chadwick found speculative the further identification with the first element of Persephone.[24][25]
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