Hyperion

The theme of memory recurs throughout the novel. For example, in Kassad’s story, “Mystery” tells him to call her either Moneta or Mnemosyne. Both of these are goddesses associated with memory, as well as knowledge. Moneta appears in Keats’s poem The Fall of Hyperion as a guide to show the dreaming poet what truth in art means. In later years, Keats wrestled with how the human condition, one of pain and suffering, fit in with beauty, truth, and art. Therefore, his Moneta guides the poet to climb the steps and not turn away from the pain and death he sees there. In a sense, the goddess of memory and knowledge is encouraging him to remember the frailty of humans, to precede with his art with full knowledge that death awaits everyone.

Though Kassad is not the poet, his own Moneta shows him the culmination of his particular art—warfare—in visions of entire worlds dying violently. She recalls for him his violent way of life prior to taking up the New Bushido code. The significance of her name becomes more apparent in the sequel The Fall of Hyperion (1989) when she reveals her true identity.

Sol Weintraub’s story is an inversion of memory.