9、Word Knowledge词汇知识：缪斯、摩涅莫辛涅

Music, museum, muse, amuse, mosaic（马赛克）... What do these words have in common? Yes, they were all originated from the nine Muses in Greek mythology.

下列单词：music（音乐）、museum（博物馆）、muse（沉默）、amuse（娱乐）、mosaic（马赛克）……有什么***同之处？对，他们都源自希腊神话中的缪斯女神。

The original meaning of the word Muses, or Mousai, may either be that of the root‘mosis’，meaning desire or wish, or‘men-’, the mind or to think. In ancient times, the nine Muses were honored by mortals（人类） and immortals alike.

缪斯这个词最初的意思可能源自表示“希望”或“欲望”的词根mosis，抑或和men-这个词根有关，意思是“思想”或“思考”。在古代，上至天神下至凡人，无不对缪斯女神顶礼膜拜。

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, built an altar for the nine muses in the library of his famous school, the Academy. The word “museum” actually means shrine（圣地） or temple to the Muses.

古希腊哲学家柏拉图就曾在他所建立的著名学府——“学园”的图书馆里，为缪斯女神设立了祭坛。英语“museum（博物馆）”一词的意思就是缪斯女神的神殿。

Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine Muses, was the Titan goddess of memory and remembrance（记忆） and the inventress of language and words.

摩涅莫辛涅是缪斯女神的母亲，也是发明了语言和词汇的记忆女神。

Being the daughter of Uranus and Gaea, she was also a goddess of time, representing the rote memorization required to preserve stories of history and the sagas of myth before the introduction of writing.

她是乌拉诺斯和盖亚的女儿，是时间女神，代表了文字发明之前人们对于神话传奇和历史故事的机械记忆。

From the name Mnemosyne, we get such modern English words as memory, mnemonic（记忆术）, memoir（备忘录） and so on.

从摩涅莫辛涅（Mnemosyne）这个名字。衍生出了现代英语中的memory（记忆）、mnemonic（记忆术）和memoir（备忘录）等这些词。

The word “mnemonics” is defined as a system or technique of developing the memory. Here is an example：I tried to think of a mnemonic device so that I could remember the names of the presidents.

如今，mnemonics这个词表示某种帮助记忆的体系或方法，例如：我努力想找到一种记忆方法（mnemonic device）来记住那些总统的名字。