WineHoneyLaughter sharedA meal made for othersSongFlowers
Invocation Approach
Tone
Warm open
Address
EuphrosyneMirthGood Cheer
Relationship
The gladness that arrives between people
Warning
She is not comfort and will not paper over what is grieving
Resonance
Those hosting or keeping a household through hard months
Symbols
The cupThe garlandThe danceThe feast table
Mythology Summary
Euphrosyne - good cheer, literally a well-disposed mind - is the second of the Charites named by Hesiod, daughter of Zeus and Eurynome with Aglaea and Thalia (Theogony 907-911). Like her sisters she has almost no independent myth: the Charites appear as attendants of Aphrodite, Apollo, the Muses and Hera, and as the returning of favour between gods and mortals. Their principal cult was at Orchomenus in Boeotia, where Pindar's fourteenth Olympian was written for them and where Pausanias describes the sanctuary (9.38).
Modern Practice
The grace of company: the lift in a room, the relief after grief, the meal that is not only food. She is invoked at the start of hospitality and in households under strain - not to pretend the strain is absent, but to keep the table going while it lasts.