Muse

Definition
In Greek mythology, the nine Muses are goddesses of the
various arts such as music, dance, and poetry and are blessed
not only with wonderful artistic talents themselves but also with
great beauty, grace, and allure. Their gifts of song, dance, and
joy helped the gods and mankind to forget their troubles and
inspired musicians and writers to reach ever greater artistic and
intellectual heights.

The Muses are the daughters of Zeus and the Titan

Mnemosyne (Memory) after the couple slept together for nine
consecutive nights. They are:

1. Calliope, traditionally the most important (beautiful-

voiced and representing epic poetry and also rhetoric),
2. Clio (glorifying and representing history),
3. Erato (lovely and representing singing),
4. Euterpe (well-delighting and representing lyric poetry),
5. Melpomene (singing and representing tragedy),
6. Polymnia (many hymning and representing hymns to the
gods and heroes),
7. Terpsichore or Stesichore (delighting in dance),
8. Thalia (blooming and representing comedy),
9. Urania (heavenly and representing astronomy).

Certain objects also became associated with the Muses and help
to identify their particular talents. Calliope often holds a writing
tablet and stylus, Clio has a scroll, Euterpe a double aulos (or
flute), and Thalia a theatre mask.

The Muses were believed to live on Mt. Olympus where they

entertained their father and the other Olympian gods with their
great artistry, but later tradition also placed them on Mt. Helicon
in Boeotia where there was a major cult centre to the
goddesses, or on Mt. Parnassus where the Castalian spring was
a favourite destination for poets and artists. On Mount Olympus,
Apollo Mousagetes was, in a certain sense, the choir leader of
the Muses, although his attachment was not limited to music, as
he fathered many children with his musical group. Calliope, the
Muse of epic poetry, was the mother of Orpheus, the
wonderfully gifted lyre player whose father was said by some to
be Apollo himself.

Although bringers of festivity and joy, the Muses were not to be

trifled with when it came to the superiority of their artistic
talents. The nine daughters of Pierus foolishly tried to compete
musically with the Muses on Mt. Helicon and were all turned into
birds for their impertinence. The Thracian musician Thamyres
(son of the Nymph Agriope) was another who challenged the
Muses in music and after inevitably coming second best to the
goddesses was punished with blindness, the loss of his musical
talent, and his singing voice. This myth was also the subject of a
tragedy by Sophocles. The Muses also acted as judges in
another musical competition, this time between Apollo on his
kithara and the satyr Marsyas, who played the aulos given to
him by Athena. Naturally, Apollo won and Marsyas was flayed
alive for his troubles.

Hesiod in his Theogony claimed that he spoke with the Muses

on Mt. Helicon, and they gave him a luxuriant laurel branch and
breathed into him their divine voice so that he could proclaim
the glory of the gods and their descendants. Thus, the simple
shepherd was transformed into one of the most important poets
in history. Hesiod also states that the Muses were created as an
aid to forgetfulness and relief from troubles, perhaps as a
balance to their mother, who personified memory.

In ancient Greece, music, and by association the Muses, were

held in great esteem and music was played in homes, in
theatres, during religious ceremonies, to accompany athletics,
provided rhythm during military training, accompanied
agricultural activities such as harvesting, and was an important
element in the education of children. For example, Themistocles,
the great Athenian politician and general, considered his
education incomplete because he could not play the khitara.
Throughout the ancient Greek world musical festivals and
competitions were held in honour of the Muses and philosophical
schools bore their name: the Mouseia.

In art, the Muses are depicted as beautiful young women, often

with wings. The Muses often appear on 5th and 4th century BCE
red- and black-figure pottery, in particular in scenes with
Apollo playing his kithara or representations of the Marsyas and
Thamyres myths. Many statues of the Muses have been found
on Delos, an important cult centre to Apollo. In addition, in the
5th century BCE, the iconography of the ideal woman in Greek
art came very close to that of a Muse. Music and, therefore, also
the Muses, frequently appear as a subject on lekythoi, the
elegant funerary vases, which were placed in graves so that
loved ones might have the pleasure of music on their journey
into the next life. A celebrated representation of the Muses as a
group is the three marble reliefs from a statue base, dating to c.
325-300 BCE and now housed in the National Archaeological
Museum of Athens.