Several of the gold leaves relate the initiate’s underworld journey to obtain a drink from the waters of memory (mnemosyne). Against the influential interpretation of Jean-Pierre Vernant, who argued that memory in the tablets was a departure from early Greek poetry, I contend that mnemosyne in these texts reflects concerns and ideas from early Greek poetry. Focusing especially on texts from Hipponion and Entella, which were unknown to Vernant, I argue that the ambiguous theme of memory was variously adapted by different ritual performers. Two texts reveal developments of communicative memory from poetic diction (with parallels in Hesiod). At other times, memory designates the mystic community as the group that assures postmortem salvation: in this respect, mnemosyne has a significance like that in lyric poetry (Theognis, Sappho). Pindar, whose afterlife imagery parallels the tablets, shows that positive eschatology can be incorporated with other strategies of memory. The treatment of the name and gender show finally that the tablets can be understood as a practice of memory, in which the identity of the deceased was reshaped and remembered according to the priorities of the group.