Minthe

For other uses, see Minthe (disambiguation).

Greek deities series
Primordial deities Titans and Olympians Aquatic deities Chthonic deities Mycenaean deities Personified concepts Other deities
Nymphs
Alseid Auloniad Aurai Crinaeae Dryads Eleionomae Hamadryads Hesperides Lampads Leuce Limnades Meliae Melinoe Minthe Naiads Napaeae Nephele Nereids Oceanids Oreads Pegaeae Pegasides Pleiades Potamides

In Greek mythology, Minthe (also Menthe, Mintha or Mentha; Greek: Μίνθη or Μένθη) was a naiad associated with the river Cocytus. She was dazzled by Hades and was about to seduce him had not Queen Persephone intervened and metamorphosed Minthe, in the words of Strabo's account, "into the garden mint, which some call hedyosmon (lit. 'sweet-smelling')".^[1] The –nth– element in menthe is characteristic of a class of words borrowed from a pre-Greek language: compare acanthus, labyrinth, Corinth, etc..

In ancient Greece, mint was used in funerary rites, together with rosemary and myrtle, and not simply to offset the smell of decay; mint was an element in the fermented barley drink called the kykeon that was an essential preparatory entheogen for participants in the Eleusinian mysteries, which offered hope in the afterlife for initiates.^[2]

Notes

↑ Strabo, Geographica VIII.3.14.
↑ Kerenyi 1967

References

Graves, Robert, (1955; rev. ed. 1960). The Greek Myths I (London: Penguin) 31.d (p 121), 31.d.note 6 (p. 124).
Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. "Menthe" p. 286
Kerenyi, Karl, 1967. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, pp. 40, 179f (Princeton: Bollingen)
Ovid: Metamorphoses X: 728–731
Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Mintha"
Strabo, 8.3.14

External links

The Theoi Project, "MINTHE"

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