Urania

Function and representation

Urania is often associated with Universal Love. Sometimes identified as the eldest of the divine sisters, Urania inherited Zeus' majesty and power and the beauty and grace of her mother Mnemosyne.

Urania dresses in a cloak embroidered with stars and keeps her eyes and attention focused on the Heavens. She is usually represented with a celestial globe to which she points with a little staff, and depicted in modern art with stars above her head. She is able to foretell the future by the arrangement of the stars.

Urania as Muse

Diodorus states that she is named Urania (heavenly) "...because men who have been instructed of her she raises aloft to heaven (ouranos), for it is a fact that imagination and the power of thought lift men’s souls to heavenly heights."

Urania, o'er her star-bespangled lyre,
With touch of majesty diffused her soul;
A thousand tones, that in the breast inspire,
Exalted feelings, o er the wires'gan roll—
How at the call of Jove the mist unfurled,
And o'er the swelling vault—the glowing sky,
The new-born stars hung out their lamps on high,
And rolled their mighty orbs to music's sweetest sound.

—From An Ode to Music by James G. Percival

During the Renaissance, Urania began to be considered the Muse for Christian poets. In the invocation to Book 7 of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the poet invokes Urania to aid his narration of the creation of the cosmos, though he cautions that it is "[t]he meaning, not the name I call" (7.5).

In popular culture

Urania in astronomy and navigation

• The planet Uranus, though mostly named after the Greek god personifying the sky, is also indirectly named after Urania.
• Urania is the namesake for astronomical observatories in Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest, Vienna, Zürich, Antwerp, and Uraniborg on the island of Ven. The main belt asteroid (30) Urania was also named after her.
• The official seal of the U.S. Naval Observatory portrays Urania. Hr. Ms. Urania is a sail training vessel for the Royal Netherlands Naval College. There has been a Hr. Ms. Urania in the Royal Netherlands Navy since 1832.
• Urania is featured on the seal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, as well of its motto: Quo ducit Urania ("Where Urania leads").