In Greek mythology, Perse or Perseis (Ancient Greek: Πέρση, Περσηίς) is one of the three thousand Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. She married Helios, the Sun, and bore him Circe and Aeetes — and in later authors also Pasiphaë, Perses of Colchis, and sometimes Aloeus or even Calypso — becoming the Oceanid ancestress of the Sun-born witch-house.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Perse (mythology)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Hesiod includes Perse among the Oceanids in the Theogony; Homer likewise makes her a child of Oceanus. As wife of Helios she is mother of Circe and Aeetes in Homer and Hesiod; later authors add Pasiphaë, Perses (the Colchian usurper), Aloeus, and even Calypso to the list of their children.
II.Mythology
When Aphrodite cursed Helios to love the mortal princess Leucothoe, he is said to have forgotten Perse and his other past lovers. Perse herself seems linked to witchcraft and knowledge of herbs and potions, much like her daughters Circe and Pasiphaë. She has also been associated with Hecate — who bears the epithet Perseis ("daughter of Perses") — and Diodorus Siculus even lists a mortal priestess of Artemis named Hecate as Circe's mother in one account.
Karl Kerényi and others noted the chthonic resonance of her name beside Hecate and Persephone (whose name can be read as a longer form of Perse). Fowler found the pairing sensible given Hecate's lunar associations, though Mooney notes there is no evidence Perse was ever a moon goddess in her own right. A Linear B tablet from Pylos has been read as naming a goddess *Preswa that John Chadwick tentatively linked to Perse, with a further speculative link to the first element of Persephone.
III.Homonyms
This Oceanid wife of Helios is distinct from the Titan Perses (father of Hecate) and from other figures whose names share the Pers- root. In this atlas she is id perseis-oceanid.