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LUNA (LOO-nuh)


1. Roman moon goddess of myth
2. A large moth of North America
Common clues: Kind of moth; Roman moon goddess; Large green moth; Our moon; Pale-green moth; Moon goddess; Goddess of the moon
Crossword puzzle frequency: 2 times a year
Frequency in English language: 34280 / 86800
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Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. ~ W. Clement Stone


In Greek mythology, Selene ("moon") (the Roman moon goddess being Luna) was an ancient lunar deity, and the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia.



Roman statue of the goddess Luna/Selene


A moon goddess is invariably a major role. If her name is Greek it is connected with selas "light" (Kerenyi p. 197). Selene was eventually largely supplanted by Artemis, thus, later writers sometimes describe her as a daughter of Zeus, or of Pallas. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, with its characteristically insistent patrilineality, she is "bright Selene, daughter of the lord Pallas, Megamedes' son."

In the traditional divine genealogy, Helios, the sun, is her brother: after her brother, Helios finished his journey across the sky, Selene began her own journey as night fell upon the earth. Her sister Eos is goddess of the dawn. Eos, it will be remembered, also carried off a human lover, Cephalus (Burkert 1985 p. 176).

Apollonius of Rhodes (4.57) tells how she loved a handsome shepherd— or in the version Pausanias knew a king of Elis, or a hunter— named Endymion from Asia Minor. He was so beautiful that Selene asked Zeus to grant him eternal life so he would never leave her: her asking permission of Zeus reveals itself as an Olympian transformation of an older myth: Cicero (Tusculanae Disputationes) recognized that the moon goddess had acted autonomously. Alternatively, Endymion made the decision to live forever in sleep. Every night, Selene slipped down behind Mount Latmus near Miletus. (Pausanias v.1.5). Selene had fifty daughters from Endymion, including Naxos. The sanctuary of Endymionat Heracleia on the southern slope, is a horseshoe-shaped chamber with an entrance hall and pillared forecourt.

Though the story of Endymion is best known today, the Homeric hymns tell that Selene also had three daughters with Zeus (including Pandia, the "utterly shining" full moon— and, according to some sources, the Nemean Lion as well. She also had an affair with Pan, who seduced her by wrapping himself in a sheepskin (Kerenyi p 19) gave her the yoke of white oxen that drew the chariot in which she is represented in sculptured reliefs, with her windblown veil above her head like the arching canopy of sky.

In art, Selene was depicted as a beautiful woman with a pale face, riding a silver chariot pulled by a yoke of oxen or a pair of horses. Often, she was shown riding a horse or bull, wearing robes and a half-moon on her head and carrying a torch.

In Rome, Luna ("moon") had a temple on the Aventine Hill. It was built in the 6th century BC but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome under Nero.


***


Actias luna, commonly known as the Luna Moth, is a lime-green, Nearctic Saturniid moth in the subfamily Saturniinae. It has a wingspan of up to four and a half inches, which ranks it as one of the largest moths in North America.



This moth is found in North America from east of the Great Plains in the United States to northern Mexico and from Manitoba eastward through central Quebec to Nova Scotia in Canada.





This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Selene" and “Actias luna”.