Clymene

1. KLYMENE (Clymene) was one of the elder Okeanides and the Titan goddess of fame and renown. She was the wife of the Titan Iapetos and the mother of Prometheus and Atlas. Klymene was also named Asia and in this guise portrayed as the eponymous goddess of Anatolia (Asia Minor).
   

   In ancient Greek vase painting she appears as a handmaiden of the goddess Hera. In the scene (right) she attends the Judgement of Paris and likely personified the gift of fame the goddess offered the prince.
   

   Asia-Klymene was frequently confounded with Asia-Hesione, the wife of Prometheus. The nymph Klymene who was loved by the sun-god Helios seems to have been a distinct personage despite sharing the name and parentage of the wife of Iapetos.

2. KLYMENE (Clymene) was an Okeanid-nymph loved by the sun-god Helios. She bore him seven daughters, the Heliad-nymphs, and a son named Phaethon. The boy was killed when he attempted to drive his father's chariot across the sky, and his sisters were transformed into poplar trees. Klymene was the personification of fame and infamy, an appropriate consort for the bright sun. She was also named Merope meaning "with face-turned"--from the Greek words meros and ops)--or "wife of Merops". The first may have originally been a reference to the solar eclipse, in which the sun's face is turned away (merops). However the poets came to associate the name with the Aithiopian (Ethiopian) kingdom and city of Merope whose people were said to have been scorched black by Phaethon when he lost control of the chariot of the sun. Klymene was probably also identified with Klytie (Clytia), a nymph loved by Helios who was transformed into a heliotrope flower. Both of their names mean "the famous one" and Klymene's title Merope ("with turning face") aptly describes the behaviour of the flower.

   Klymene appears to be unrelated to the wife of the Titan Iapetos who was also named Klymene and described as a daughter of Okeanos.

THE OKEANIDES (Oceanids) were three thousand goddess-nymphs who presided over the sources of earth's fresh-water--from rain-clouds to subterranean springs and fountains. Their numbers included the Nephelai (Cloud-Nymphs), Aurai (Breeze-Nymphs), Naiades (Spring and Fountain Nymphs), Leimonides (Pasture Nymphs), and Anthousai (Flower Nymphs). They were all daughters of the great, earth-encircling, fresh-water stream Okeanos (Oceanus) and his wife Tethys.

The eldest among them were numbered among the Titanides (female Titans)--Styx, Dione, Neda, Metis, Klymene, Eurynome, Doris, Elektra, and Pleione. These were most likely heavenly goddesses of the clouds.

Some of the Okeanides personified divine blessings such as Metis (Wisdom), Klymene (Fame), Plouto (Wealth), Tykhe (Good Fortune), Telesto (Success), and Peitho (Persuasion). The goddess Nemesis was sometimes also included in their number as one who provided balance by punishing undeserved good fortune as might arise from her sister's gifts. These Good Spirits (Daimones Agathoi) were ephemeral in nature much like the dark children of Nyx (Night), the Spirits of Harm (Daimones Kakoi).

Another group of Okeanides were handmaidens of the Olympian goddesses, the most prominent of these were the sixty Okeanis companions of Artemis, Peitho the handmaiden of Aphrodite, and Klymene the handmaiden of Hera.

The Naias-Okeanides (Naiads) were primarily nymphs of springs, wells and fountains. They were often portrayed as the wives of the Potamoi (River-Gods) and mothers of younger Naiades.

The Okeanides were occasionally described as sea-nymphs. In the late classical era the mythical, earth-encircling, fresh-water river Okeanos was increasingly equated with the briny Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and his nymph-daughters reimagined as marine deities.