Rhapso Explained

In Greek mythology, Rhapso (Greek: Ῥαψώ) was a nymph or a minor goddess worshipped at Athens. She is known solely from an inscription of the 4th century BCE, found at Phaleron.^[1] Her name apparently derives from the Greek verb ῥάπτω "to sew" or "to stitch".

According to some, she is associated with the Moirai (as a fate goddess) and Eileithyia (as a birth goddess); she somehow organized a man's thread of life, at birth, by some sort of stitching work (similar to Clotho of the Moirai). And according to others, she was possibly a patroness of seamstresses.^[2]

References

• H. G. Liddel, R. Scott, H. Stuart Jones, R. McKenzie. Greek-English Lexicon. Revised supplement. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996; p. 269, under Ῥαψώ
• Chantraine, Pierre. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots. Tome IV-1. Paris, Éditions Klincksiek, 1977; p. 967, sous ῥάπτω (French)
• Glossalalia: an alphabet of critical keywords, by Julian Wolfreys, Harun Karim Thomas
• David Gerard Rice, John E. Stambaugh. Sources for the study of Greek religion, 2009. - pp. 114, 115

Notes and References

1. Inscriptiones Graecae, 2², 4547
2. Rice-Stambaugh 2009, p. 114