L'ALLEGRO

BY MR. JOHN MILTON makes an appearance during this episode. The poet invokes Euphrosyne, the Goddess of Mirth, whom we also serve. According to Hesiod, she and her sisters, Thalia and Aglaea, are daughters of Zeus and the Oceanid nymph Eurynome. Alternative parentage attributes Zeus and Eurydome, Eurymedousa, or Euanthe; the god Dionysus and Coronis; or Helios, the Titan whose job was taken over later by the Olympian Apollo, with the beautiful Naiad Aegle.The Roman author Hyginus in his FABULAE also mentions a figure named Euphrosyne, whom he cites as the daughter of Nox, or Night and Erebus, a.k.a. Darkness.Our Euphrosyne is a goddess of good cheer, joy and mirth. Her name is derived from (the female version) euphrosynos, "merriment." Pindar wrote that these goddesses were created to fill the world with pleasant moments and good will. Their presence is needed nowadays more than ever. Too many are the unsatisfying and ultimately exhausting manufactured simulacra of joys, the distractions of false entanglements.