Meliade

Meliade eller Meliai (oldgræsk: Μελίαι Meliai eller Μελιάδες Meliades) var i græsk mytologi normalt anset som nymfer i asketræ, hvis navn de delte.^[1] Ifølge Hesiod blev Meliades (formentlig i betydningen af alle tre nymfer) født af en bloddråbe, der faldt på Gaia (Jorden), da Kronos kastrerede Uranus.^[2] I Hesiods Værker og dage er asketræerne, der måske betyder Meliade-nymferne, stamfader til den generation af mænd, der tilhørte Hesiods Bronzealder.^[3]

1. ^ Caldwell, p. 38 n. 178–187: "The nymphs called Meliai are properly "ash-tree" nymphs; the Greek word for ash-trees is meliai also", and according to Larson, p. 29: "most commentators agree" that "the Meliai are ash-tree nymphs", although according to West, p. 221 n. 187 Μελίας, in Callimachus, Hymn 4—To Delos 79–85, and Nonnus' Dionysiaca, and probably in Hesiod as well, the Meliae are simply "tree-nymphs, probably without distinction of the particular kind of tree".
2. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 182–187; West, p. 221 n. 187 Μελίας; Hard, p. 209.
3. ^ Hesiod, Works and Days 140–155 (Evelyn-White): "Zeus the Father made a third generation of mortal men, a brazen race, sprung from ash-trees [meliai]", here interpreting meliai as the common noun ash-trees, as did Eustathius. However Proclus thought it meant ash-tree nymphs (see Evelyn-White's note; Larson, p. 29), cf. Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautica 4.1641–1642, which makes it simply "ash-trees". According to Most, p. 19 n. 9, "It is unclear what exactly the relation is between the Melian nymphs, the ash trees with which they are closely associated, and human beings, who may have originated from one or the other of these".