The Orphic Hymns

waxing and waning, female and male, giver of light, lover of horses, mother of time, bringer of fruit, beaming one, heavy-hearted, illuminator, shining by night,

Mēnē, the Moon, and mēn, "month," are related words, since the Greeks, like most peoples, counted their months by the moon. That is why she is "mother of time." She is also "female and male," perhaps because in Asia Minor, where the hymns were most likely composed, the moon was worshipped as a male god too: Men, whom the address to Musaeus names among the gods. Ēlektris is the feminine of ēlektōr, "the beaming one," a word Homer uses for the Sun.