The nine muses

The nine muses

In Greek mythology, the Muses (Ancient Greek αἱ μοῦσαι, hai moũsai: perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "think" are a sisterhood of goddesses or spirits, their number set at nine by Classical times, who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris, from which they are sometimes called the Pierides. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an inspiration, as when one cites his/her own artistic muse, but they are also implicit in the words "amuse" or "musing upon

According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they are the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from Uranus and Gaia. Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses; the first being daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia (the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares) which contradicts the myth in which they were dancing at the wedding of Harmonia and Cadmus.

Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae,(the) Völva of Norse Mythology and also the apsarasa in the culture of classical India.

Muses in myth

According to Pausanias in the later second century AD,there were three original Muses: Aoidç ("song" or "voice"), Meletç ("practice" or "occasion"), and Mnçmç ("memory"). Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshipped as well, but with other names: Nçtç, Mesç, and Hypatç, which are the names of the three chords of the ancient musical instrument, the lyre. Alternatively they were called Cçphisso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis, whose names characterise them as daughters of Apollo. In later tradition, four Muses were recognized: Thelxinoç, Aoedç, Arche, and Meletç, said to be daughters of Zeus and Plusia (or of Uranus). One of the persons associated with the Muses was Pierus. By some he was called the father (by a Pimpleian nymph: called Antiope by Cicero) of a total of seven Muses, called Neilo, Tritone, Asopo, Heptapora, Achelois, Tipoplo, and Rhodia.

The Muses judged the contest between Apollo and Marsyas. They also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. They blinded Thamyris for his hubris in challenging them to a contest.

Though the Muses, when taken together, form a complete picture of the subjects proper to poetic art, the association of specific muses with specific art forms is a later innovation. The Muses were not assigned standardized divisions of poetry with which they are now identified until late Hellenistic times. The canonical nine Muses, with their fields of patronage, as established since the Renaissance, are:

Calliope (the 'beautiful of speech'): chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry

Clio (the 'glorious one'): muse of history

Erato (the 'amorous one'): muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs

Euterpe (the 'well-pleasing'): muse of music and lyric poetry

Melpomene (the 'chanting one'): muse of tragedy

Polyhymnia or Polymnia (the '[singer] of many hymns'): muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric

Terpsichore (the '[one who] delights in dance'): muse of choral song and dance

Thalia (the 'blossoming one'): muse of comedy and bucolic poetry

Urania (the 'celestial one'): muse of astronomy