Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, according to

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

, the 7th century BC Greek poet Alcman said that Ersa or Herse (, , literally " dew"), the personification of dew, is the daughter of

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

and the Moon (

Selene In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Selene (; , meaning "Moon")''A Greek–English Lexicon's.v. σελήνη is the goddess and personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene (), she is traditionally the daughter ...

).Hard
p. 46
ní Mheallaigh
p. 26
Keightley
p. 55
According to Hard, "this is really no more than an allegorical fancy referring to the heavy dew-fall associated with clear moonlit nights", while Keightley calls this a "pleasing fiction" of Alcman, and says that "The moon was naturally, though incorrectly, regarded as the cause of dew, and nothing therefore was more obvious than to say that the dew was the progeny of the moon and sky personified after the usual manner of the Greeks". Plutarch writes:

Notes

References

* Campbell, David A., ''Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus'',

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 142, Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

, 1990.
Online version at Harvard University Press
* Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004, . * Keightley, Thomas, ''The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy'', G. Bell and Sons, 1877. * ní Mheallaigh, Karen, ''The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination: Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, 2020. . *

, '' Moralia''. 16 vols. (vol. 13: 13.1 & 13.2, vol. 16: index), transl. by Frank Cole Babbitt (vol. 1–5) et al., series: "

" (LCL, vols. 197–499). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press et al., 1927–2004.

External links

* Greek goddesses Children of Zeus Lunar goddesses Children of Selene {{Greek-deity-stub