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For the butterfly genus, see Lethe (genus). A butterfly is an Insect of the order Lepidoptera. Like all Lepidoptera butterflies are notable for their unusual life cycle with a A genus (plural genera from Γένος Latin genus "descent family type gender" is a low-level Taxonomic Lethe is a Butterfly genus from the subfamily Satyrinae in the family Nymphalidae. Not to be confused with Leath. Not to be confused with Lethe. Leath was one of the wards of the ancient county of Cumberland in north west
Greek underworld
Residents
Geography
Famous Inmates

In Classical Greek, Lethe (λήθη; lèthè) literally means "forgetfulness" or "concealment". The Greek Underworld is a general term used to describe the various realms of Greek mythology which were believed to lie beneath the earth or beyond the horizon Aeacus (also spelled Eäcus, Greek, "bewailing" or "earth borne" was a mythological king of the island of Aegina In Greek mythology, Cerberus or Kerberos ( Greek Κέρβερος Kérberos) the ker or Daimon of In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (in Greek, Χάρων &mdash the bright) was the Ferryman of Hades Hades (from Greek, Hadēs, originally, Haidēs or, Aidēs, probably from Indo-European *n̥-wid- 'unseen' refers both to the ancient In Greek mythology, Minos ( Ancient Greek:) was a mythical king of Crete son of Zeus and Europa. In Greek mythology, Persephone ( Kore or Cora) was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld In Greek myths, Rhadamanthus ( also transliterated as Rhadamanthys or Rhadamanthos) was a wise king the son of Zeus and This article concerns the Greek river For other uses see Acheron (disambiguation. The Asphodel Meadows is a section of the Ancient Greek underworld where indifferent and ordinary souls were sent to live after death Cocytus or Kokytos, meaning "the river of wailing" (from the Greek κωκυτός, "lamentation" is a river in the underworld in In Greek mythology, Elysium ( Greek:) was a section of the Underworld (the spelling Elysium is a Latinization of the In Greek mythology, Erebus or Erebos ( Ancient Greek:, English translation: "deep blackness/darkness or shadow" was the son of a primordial In Greek mythology, the river Phlegethon ( English translation: "flaming" or Pyriphlegethon (English translation "fire-flaming" was In classic Greek mythology below Heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros ( Greek Τάρταρος deep place In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly, and a son of Ares or Antion or the notorious In Greek mythology, Sisyphus ( Greek: Σίσυφος, Latinized: Sisyphus (ˈsɪsɨfəs was a King punished in In Greek mythology Tantalus ( Greek Τάνταλος was a son of Zeus and the Nymph Plouto. In Greek mythology, the Titans ( Greek: Tītā́n; plural Tītânes) were a race of powerful Deities that ruled during the legendary The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c It is related to the Greek word for "truth": a-lèthe-ia (αλήθεια), shel[d,t]stles, meaning "forgetstles" or "inconcelia". In Greek mythology, Lethe is one of the several rivers of Hades: those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and Heroes the nature of the world and the origins and significance Hades (from Greek, Hadēs, originally, Haidēs or, Aidēs, probably from Indo-European *n̥-wid- 'unseen' refers both to the ancient Lethe was also a naiad, the daughter of Eris ('Strife' in Hesiod's Theogony). In Greek mythology, the Naiads or Naiades (Ναϊάδες from the Greek νάειν "to flow" and νἃμα "running water" Eris ( Greek Ἔρις, "Strife" is the Greek Goddess of strife her name being translated into Latin as Discordia Hesiod ( Greek: Hesiodos) was an early Greek Poet and Rhapsode, who presumably lived around 700 BCE The naiad Lethe is probably a separate personification of forgetfulness rather than a reference to the river which bears her name.

Contents

Role in religion and philosophy

Some ancient Greeks believed that souls were made to drink from the river before being reincarnated, so they would not remember their past lives. The Myth of Er at the end of Plato's Republic tells of the dead arriving at the "plain of Lethe", which the river Ameles ("careless") runs through. The Myth of Er is an eschatological legend that concludes Plato 's dialogue known as "The Republic" (10 Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece The Republic ( Greek: / Politeía, meaning "political system" Latin: Res Publica, meaning "public business" or A few mystery religions taught the existence of another river, the Mnemosyne; those who drank from the Mnemosyne would remember everything and attain omniscience. Mystery Religions, Sacred Mysteries or simply Mysteries, were "religious cults of the Graeco-Roman Mnemosyne (Greek, nɪˈmɒzɪni or /nɪˈmɒsəni/ (sometimes confused with Mneme or compared with Memoria Omniscience (ɒm'nɪsɪəns (or Omniscient Point-of-View in writing is the capacity to know everything infinitely or at least everything that can be known about a character Initiates were taught that they would receive a choice of rivers to drink from after death, and to drink from Mnemosyne instead of Lethe. These two rivers are attested in several verse inscriptions on gold plates dating to the 4th century BC and onward, found at Thurii in Southern Italy and elsewhere throughout the Greek world. The 4th century BC started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 301 BC. Thurii &ndash Greek:, called also by some Latin writers and by Ptolemy, Thurium ( Ptol Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest There were rivers of Lethe and Mnemosyne at the oracular shrine of Trophonius in Boeotia, from which worshippers would drink before making oracular consultations with the god. Trophonius (the Latinate spelling or Trophonios (in the transliterated Greek spelling was a Greek hero or daimon or God - it was Boeotia, Beotia, or Bœotia ( Greek: Βοιωτία - English biːˈoʊʃiə formerly Cadmeis was a region of Ancient Greece, north of the More recently, Martin Heidegger used "lēthē" to symbolize the "concealment of Being" or "forgetting of Being" that he saw as a major problem of modern philosophy. Examples are found in his books on Nietzsche (Vol 1, p. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist 194) and on Parmenides.

Real rivers

The River Lethe in Alaska.
The River Lethe in Alaska.

Amongst authors in Antiquity, the tiny Limia River near Xinzo de Limia in the province of Ourense in Galicia was said to have the same properties of memory loss as the legendary Lethe River. The Limia River ( Lima in Portuguese) is a river in Galicia, Spain and Portugal, with an extension of 108 km Xinzo de Limia (elevation 620 Metres population of the concello 10022 hab population of the town 6713 hab Galicia (occasionally Galiza) is an autonomous community in northwest Spain. In 138 BC, the Roman general Decimus Junius Brutus sought to dispose of the myth, as it impeded his military campaigns in the area. Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus was a Roman politician and general of the 2nd century BC He was said to have crossed the Limia and then called his soldiers on the other side, one by one, by name. The soldiers, astonished that their general remembered their names, crossed the river as well without fear. This act proved that the Limia was not as dangerous as the local myths described. In Alaska, a river which runs through the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is called River Lethe. The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is a Valley within Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska which is filled with ash flow from the River Lethe is located 18 km (12 mi west of Mount Katmai, Alaska Peninsula, and is the middle branch of Ukak River.

Poetry

In The Divine Comedy, the stream of Lethe flows to the centre of the earth from its surface, but its headwaters are located in the Earthly Paradise found at the top of the mountain of Purgatory. The Divine Comedy Not to be confused with Eden Gardens.The Garden of Eden ( Hebrew "pleasure" גַּן עֵדֶן Arabic: جنات عدن, See also Intermediate state Limbo|Heaven|Sheol|Hades in Christianity|Hell in Christianity Purgatory, in the original sense is the condition or process of purification In John Keats' poem, "Ode on Melancholy", the first line begins "No, no! Go not to Lethe". In his Ode to a Nightingale the "Lethe-wards" are said to have sunk into the narrator and created a "drowsy numbness". Ode to a Nightingale is a Poem by John Keats. It was written in May 1819 in the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead The fourth stanza of the fourth canto of Byron's "Don Juan" reads: "And if I laugh at any mortal thing,/ 'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,/ 'T is that our nature cannot always bring/ Itself to apathy, for we must steep/ Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,/ Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:/ Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;/ A mortal mother would on Lethe fix. Don Juan (dɒn dʒuən is a long digressive satiric poem by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses portraying Juan not as "

In his poem "The Sleeper," Edgar Allan Poe describes a 'sleeping' "universal valley" that includes a Lethe-like body of water. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, "Looking like Lethe, see! the lake/A conscious slumber seems to take,/And would not, for the world, awake. " Charles Baudelaire's poem "Spleen" ends with the lines "II n'a su réchauffer ce cadavre hébété/Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé" ("He failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins/Flows the green water of Lethe in place of blood. "). He also wrote a poem called "Le Léthé" ("Lethe"). Baudelaire also wrote a poem entitled "Le Lethe" in which an adored but cruel woman serves as a metaphor for the oblivion of the river Lethe. In Hymn to Proserpine (1866) by Algernon Charles Swinburne, the line "We have drunken of things Lethean. " Hymn to Proserpine " is a Poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in 1866. Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909 was a Victorian era English poet . . " laments the decline of pagan tradition and beliefs in ancient Rome following the endorsement of Christianity as the official religion.

The Edna St. Vincent Millay poem "Lethe" describes the river as "the taker-away of pain,/And the giver-back of beauty!" In "The Scarlet Woman", a poem by African-American poet Fenton Johnson (1888-1958), a young woman resorts to prostitution in order to avoid starvation. Edna St Vincent Millay ( February 22, 1892 &ndash October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright and the first The poem concludes with the lines "Now I can drink more gin than any man for miles around. /Gin is better than all the water in Lethe. "

"Getting There", a 1962 poem by Sylvia Plath, ends with the lines "And I, stepping from this skin/Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces//Step up to you from the black car of Lethe,/Pure as a baby. Sylvia Plath (October 27 1932 &ndash February 11 1963 was an American Poet, Novelist and Short story Writer. " The river Lethe is mentioned in Allen Ginsberg's poem "A Supermarket in California". Irwin Allen Ginsberg (ˈgɪnzbɝg (June 3 1926 &ndash April 5 1997 was an American Poet. Billy Collins, in his poem "Forgetfulness", refers to "a dark mythological river/whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall". William A ("Billy" Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet.

Novels

James L. Grant's horror novel, On the Banks of Lethe, a reference to the books theme of lost memories. In chapter 4 of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth claims, "I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe. Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4 1804 – May 19 1864 was an American novelist and Short story writer The Scarlet Letter is the Magnum opus of Nathaniel Hawthorne. " In Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love there is a reference to "Neolethe" (see the chapter entitled Counterpoint I), which is apparently a powerful sedative. Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. Time Enough for Love is a Science fiction Novel by Robert A Heinlein, first published in 1973. In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, the main character's name is Sethe, a psuedonym based on the idea of the power of water, particularly the motif that water can weather her past. Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18 1931 is a Nobel Prize -winning American author editor and professor Beloved is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing states to Lucy "It smell so like the waters of Lethe. . . "(Stoker, 192) talking about the garlic which he was going to place around her room so the Dracula would not suck her blood.

C. S. Lewis refers to Lethe in The Great Divorce when he writes, “‘It is up there in the mountains, very cold and clear, between two green hills. Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963 The Great Divorce is a work of Fantasy by C S Lewis that portrays Christian perceptions of the life after death allegorically specifically A little like Lethe. When you have drunk of it you forget forever all proprietorship in your own works". The Spirit who talks about the fountain is describing Heaven to an artist, telling him that soon he will forget all ownership of his work. In the volume, Swann's Way, of Marcel Proust's novel, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), the narrator comments, as he recollects a seemingly lost memory, ". Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (maʁsɛl pʁust (10 July 1871 &ndash 18 November 1922 was a French Novelist Essayist and Critic In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu is a semi-autobiographical . . trying to remember, feeling deep within myself a tract of soil reclaimed from the waters of Lethe slowly drying until the buildings rise on it again;"

The unnamed narrator of Sasha Sokolov's first novel, A School for Fools, has a significant habit of referring to the river running through his neighborhood in the Russian countryside as Lethe.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walking: "The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to forget our Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed this time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the Pacific, which is three times as wide. "

In chapter 17 of Graham Greene's novel The Tenth Man, the protagonist Charlot watches the charlatan Carosse beguile the vulnerable Mademoiselle Mangeot: "He knew the game so well, Charlot thought: the restless playboy knew how to offer what most people wanted more than love--peace. Henry Graham Greene OM, CH (2 October 1904 &ndash 3 April 1991 was an English writer best known as a novelist but who also produced Short stories The Tenth Man (1985 is a short novel by British novelist Graham Greene. The words flowed like water--the water of Lethe. "

In Piers Anthony's With a Tangled Skein, Niobe accompanies her daughter and granddaughter on a quest to acquire an enchanted paint brush and a harp. Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob (born August 6, 1934 in Oxford England) is an English American writer in the Science fiction With a Tangled Skein is a fantasy novel by Piers Anthony. It is the third of eight books in the Incarnations of Immortality series During the quest, the trio must cross an illusory representation of the Lethe. Later, in Hell, Niobe must again cross a river, and wonders if it might be the actual Lethe. In Valeer Damen’s novel KATABASIS, one of the main characters has to find and cross the river Lethe as a step in the process of entering the afterlife. “‘There is the plain. Transit. Like a battlefield. All the energy totals of actions and thoughts are there. Wind blows. Tests are there, functionaries, agents from above and below. Introduction functionary cannot help solve tests or help in final adjudication. In the end, river. ’” (Damen, 21).

In the May 21, 2008 edition of The Onion, Bob Schloman contibuted an op-ed entiled "Must. For the vegetable see Onion. The Onion is an American " fake news " organization An editorial, leader (UK or leading article (UK is an article in a Newspaper or Magazine that expresses the opinion of the Editor . Stay. . . Awake" in which he writes, "Sleep. Sleep…blessed gift of the waters of the mythical river Lethe. Washing over me like an unstoppable tide of blissful oblivion. Sucking me under, into the realm of the unconscious, to dream of moonless, perfect darkness… snuggly warm blankets tucked under chin…soft, yielding pillows that know no newspaper, no assignments, no deadlines… nothing but…pure…unadulterated…quiet. "

Used as an exclamation in Stephen Baxter's novel, Exultant.

Plays

In William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, Antony, on seeing the murderers' hands red with Caesar's blood, observes: "Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand,/Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy Lethe" (III. William Shakespeare ( baptised Julius Caesar is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599 i. 215). Additionally, the character of Sebastian refers to Lethe in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!" (IV. Twelfth Night Or What You Will is a Comedy by William Shakespeare, based on the Short story "Of Apolonius and Silla" by ii. 61).

In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. William Shakespeare ( baptised Hamlet's father's Ghost says the following line to the prince, "I find thee apt, And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,° Wouldst thou not stir in this. " (Act 1, scene V) In Antony and Cleopatra Sextus Pompey talks of Antony's supposed military inertia, hoping that "Epicurean cooks / Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite, / That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour / Even till a Lethe'd dullness-" (II. Antony and Cleopatra is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623 i. 24-27).

In Samuel Beckett's radio play Embers, the main character Henry describes conversing with his dead wife: "that's what hell will be like, small chat to the babbling of Lethe about the good old days when we wished we were dead". Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957 and first broadcast on BBC Radio In Sarah Ruhl's play Eurydice, all the shades must drink from Lethe and become like stones, speaking in their inaudible language and forgetting everything of the world. Eurydice is a play by Sarah Ruhl which retells the myth of Orpheus from the perspective of Eurydice, his wife This river is a central theme of the play. In Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, the character John Styx drinks the waters of Lethe in a deliberate attempt to forget things. Jacques Offenbach (born Jacob Offenbach 20 June 1819 in Cologne &ndash 5 October 1880 in Paris) was a German Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld, Opéra bouffe (or Opéra féerie in its revised version is an Operetta by Jacques His forgetfulness is a singnificant factor in the plot of the last act.

Movies

In Roy Andersson's You, the Living, a quotation from Goethe's Roman Elegies ("Be pleased then, you the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe’s ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot") is presented as an epigraph. Roy Andersson (born 31 March 1943) is a Swedish Film director, best known for his films A Swedish Love Story and You the Living ( Swe: Du levande) is a 2007 film by Swedish director Roy Andersson. ˈjoːhan ˈvɔlfgaŋ fɔn ˈgøːtə (in English generally ˈgɝːtə 28 August 1749 22 March 1832 was a German writer The Roman Elegies (also known as Erotica Romana, original German: Römische Elegien) is a series of Poems by Johann Wolfgang von Later, a tram is seen with "Lethe" as its destination. A tram, tramcar, trolley, trolley car, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle, of lighter weight and construction than a Train

Music

Science

Dr. William T.G. Morton, who first publicly demonstrated the use of ether as an anesthetic, called his ether "Letheon". Diethyl ether, also known as ether and ethoxyethane, is a clear colorless and highly Flammable liquid with a low Boiling point and a

Games

Dictionary

Lethe

-proper noun

  1. (Greek mythology) Personification of "Oblivion", daughter of Eris, is one of the rivers which flow through Underworld. The souls of the dead had to drink from it to forget their past lives spent on earth.
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