View source for Ersa

[[File:Distelbarth, Friedrich, Artemis-Selene-Relief, Bildfeld 6.jpg|thumb|]]

{{Short description|Greek water deity}}
{{Other uses}}
In [[Greek mythology]], according to [[Plutarch]], the 7th century BC Greek poet [[Alcman]] said that '''Ersa''' {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɜr|s|ə}} or '''Herse''' {{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|ɜr|s|iː}} ({{langx|grc|Ἔρσα|translit=Érsa|label=none}}, {{langx|grc|Ἕρση|translit=Hérsē|label=none}}, literally "[[dew]]"), the personification of [[dew]], is the daughter of [[Zeus]] and the Moon ([[Selene]]).<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA46 p. 46]; ní Mheallaigh, [https://books.google.com/books?id=h6ECEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 p. 26]; Keightley, [https://books.google.com/books?id=YhsYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA55 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".</ref> Plutarch writes:

{{poemquote|We observe this happening to the air also: it sheds dew especially at the full moon when it melts, as the lyric poet Alcman says somewhere when he talks in riddling fashion of the dew as daughter of air and moon:
:such things as are nurtured by Dew, daughter of Zeus and Selene.<ref>[[Alcman]] [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/alcman-fragments/1988/pb_LCL143.435.xml fr. 57 Campbell] [= [[Plutarch]], ''[[Moralia]]'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plutarch-moralia_table_talk/1961/pb_LCL424.279.xml 659 B] = fr. 48 Bergk = fr. 43 Diehl] (see also [[Plutarch]], ''[[Moralia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plutarch-moralia_causes_natural_phenomena/1965/pb_LCL426.201.xml 918 A], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plutarch-face_which_appears_orb_moon/1957/pb_LCL406.175.xml 940 A]).</ref>}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
* Campbell, David A., ''Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus'',  [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 142, Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]], 1990. {{ISBN|0-674-99157-5}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL142/1982/volume.xml 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, {{ISBN|9780415186360}}.
* Keightley, Thomas, ''The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy'', G. Bell and Sons, 1877.
* [[Karen ní Mheallaigh|ní Mheallaigh, Karen]], ''The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination: Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, 2020. {{ISBN|9781108603188}}.
* [[Plutarch]], ''[[Moralia]]''. 16 vols. (vol. 13: 13.1 & 13.2, vol. 16: index), transl. by Frank Cole Babbitt (vol. 1–5) et al., series: "[[Loeb Classical Library]]" (LCL, vols. 197–499). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press et al., 1927–2004.

==External links==
* {{wiktionary-inline|Ersa}}

{{Greek mythology (deities)|state=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Daughters of Zeus]]
[[Category:Lunar goddesses]]
[[Category:Children of Selene]]

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