Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

The Homeric Hymn to Selene asks the Muses to sing the long-winged Moon, daughter of Hyperion (and of Pallas in one reading of the tradition; the hymn stresses her radiant course). Selene bathes her lovely body in Ocean, puts on shining raiment, and yokes her gleaming team to ride high, a brightness for watchers on earth. The hymn adds that Zeus lay with her and she bore Pandia, a maiden of exceptional beauty among the gods’ children. The poet ends with a short farewell and a turn toward other song. Catalogue Selene’s hymn apart from Endymion’s sleep and from the Hesiodic sibling birth with Helios and Eos: here the Moon is hymnic subject, chariot-driver, and mother of Pandia.