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In Greek mythology, Momus was the god of mockery, writers, poets, a spirit of evil-spirited blame and unfair criticism. Hesiod said that Momus was a son of Night ( Nyx), in Theogony, 214. He mocked Hephaestus, Lucian of Samosata recalled (in the extended dialogue Hermotimus, 20), for having made mankind without doors in their breast, through which their thoughts could be seen. He even mocked Aphrodite, though all he could find was that she was talkative and had creaky sandals ( Philostratus, Epistles). Because of his constant criticism, he was exiled from Mt. Olympus.

When Sir Francis Bacon wrote an essay "Of Building," (XLV) he said that "He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat, committeth himself to prison... Neither is it ill air only that maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets, and, if you consult with Momus, ill neighbours."

The "Café Momus" is the fictional café (based on the Brasserie des Martyrs) that is the setting for Henri Murger 's Scènes de la vie bohème, which provided the basic material for Puccini's librettists of La Boheme.

Inspired by the god, Momus was the name of a Mardi Gras society in Galveston, the Knights of Momus ("KOM"), founded in 1871, and of the second-oldest New Orleans CarnivalMardi Gras ( French for "Fat Tuesday") is the day before Ash Wednesday, and is also called " Shrove Tuesday or Carnival ("car-nee-VAHL" elsewhere but in New Orleans "CAR-na-val"). It is a celebration that is held just before the beginning of the Christian KreweA Krewe is an organization that puts on a parade and or a ball for the New Orleans Carnival season ( Mardi Gras). The word is thought to have been coined in the early 19th century by an organization calling themselves Ye Mystick Krewe of Comus as an imita, founded in 1882. In 1992 a new city ordinance demanded more open krewe membership in return for parade permits, and Momus was one of three historic krewes, (with Comus of 1857 and Proteus of 1882) that elected to discontinue their parades rather than open up their membership.

1 External link

• Harry Thurston Peck, Harper's Dictionary of classical antiquity, 1897: Momus
• Bohemian Café Society": the real "Café Momus
• Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy: ruminations on Momus' windows of glass, in Volume 1, chapter 23 (text)

2 See Also

• La BohèmeLa Boheme is an often-adapted story first appearing in Henry Murger's magazine articles in the early 1800s. These were turned into a play, La Vie de Boheme in 1849, and later were compiled into the book Scenes de la Vie de Boheme ( Paris, 1851). It has al, where the Cafe Momus is the setting for the scene in the Latin quarter