In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses (, ; singular: , Moúsa, ; , ) were the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture.
The number and names of the Muses differed by region, but from the Classical period the number of Muses was standardized to nine, and their names were generally given as Calliope, Clio, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Terpsichore, Erato, Melpomene, Thalia, and Urania.Grimal, s.v. Muses.
In modern figurative usage, a muse is a person who serves as someone's source of artistic inspiration.
Etymology
The word Muses () perhaps came from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root (the basic meaning of which is 'put in mind' in verb formations with transitive function and 'have in mind' in those with intransitive function), or from root ('to tower, mountain') since all the most important cult-centres of the Muses were on mountains or hills.* A. B. Cook (1914), Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, p. 104, Cambridge University Press. R. S. P. Beekes rejects the latter etymology and suggests that a Pre-Greek origin is also possible.R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 972.
Number and names
The earliest known records of the Muses come from Boeotia (Boeotian muses). Some ancient authorities regarded the Muses as of Thracian origin. In Thrace, a tradition of three original Muses persisted.At least, this was reported to Pausanias in the second century AD. Cfr. Karl Kerényi: The Gods of the Greeks, Thames & Hudson, London 1951, p. 104 and note 284.
In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus, in his Library of History (Bibliotheca Historica), cited Homer and Hesiod to the contrary, observing:
Diodorus additionally states that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the satyrs, while passing through Aethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went.Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica Bk 1, Ch. 18
According to Hesiod's account in his Theogony (), generally followed by the writers of antiquity, the Nine Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (i.e., "Memory" personified), figuring as personifications of knowledge and the arts, especially poetry, literature, dance and music.
The Roman scholar Varro (116–27 BC) relates that there are only three Muses: one born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice. They were called Melete ("Practice"), Mneme ("Memory") and Aoide ("Song"). The Quaestiones Convivales of Plutarch (46–120 AD) also report a tradition of three ancient Muses (9.14.2–4).Plutarch, Moralia: Quaestiones Convivales 9.14See also the Italian article on this writer.Susan Scheinberg, in reporting other Hellenic maiden triads in "The Bee Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes", references Diodorus, Plutarch and Pausanias - Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 83 (1979:1–28), p. 2.
However, the classical understanding of the Muses tripled their triad and established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance. It was not until Hellenistic times that the following systematic set of functions became associated with them, and even then some variation persisted both in their names and in their attributes:
According to Pausanias, who wrote in the later second century AD, there were originally three Muses, worshipped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Aoide ('song' or 'tune'), Melete ('practice' or 'occasion'), and Mneme ('memory').Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.29.1–2 Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice.
In Delphi too three Muses were worshipped, but with other names: Nete, Mese, and Hypate, which are assigned as the names of the three chords of the ancient musical instrument, the lyre.Plutarch Symposium 9.14
Alternatively, later they were called Cephisso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis – names which characterize them as daughters of Apollo.Eumelus fr. 35 as cited from Tzetzes on Hesiod, 23; Tzetzes on Hesiod, Works and Days 6
A later tradition recognized a set of four Muses: Thelxinoë, Aoide, Archē, and Melete, said to be daughters of Zeus and Plusia or of Ouranos.Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.53, Epicharmis, Tzetzes on Hes. 23 One of the people frequently 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 (), (), (), (), Achelōís, (), and ().Epicharmis, Tzetzes on Hes. 23Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Musae" .
Ancient writers often called Boeotia Aonia, and because the Muses often visited Mount Helicon in Boeotia, they were called Aonides and Aoniae Sorores.Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), AonesCharlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Aonia
Mythology
According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they were daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, Titan goddess of memory. Hesiod narrates that the Muses brought to people forgetfulness, that is, the forgetfulness of pain and the cessation of obligations.
For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the early deities Uranus and Gaia. Gaia is Mother Earth, an early mother goddess who was worshipped at Delphi from prehistoric times, long before the site was rededicated to Apollo, possibly indicating a transfer to association with him after that time.
Sometimes the Muses are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris. It was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the Muses, also known as pegasides, were born.Ovid, Heroides 15.27: "the daughters of Pegasus" in the English translation; Propertius, Poems 3.1.19: "Pegasid Muses" in the English translation. Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the Muses (compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae, the Völva of Norse mythology and also the apsaras in the mythology of classical India).
Classical writers set Apollo as their leader, ('Apollo Muse-leader').For example, Plato, Laws 653d. In one myth, the Muses judged a contest between Apollo and Marsyas. They also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them in Leibethra.
Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses; the first are the daughters of Ouranos 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.
According to one version of Adonis' death, the Muses became angry with Aphrodite because she caused many of them to fall in love and bear children. In revenge, they sang a beautiful hunting song that excited Adonis and lured him into the hunt, where he was killed by a boar. In a different version, Ares either transformed himself into the boar or attacked and killed Adonis as he charged at it.Tzetzes, Ad Lycophronem, 831
Children Calliope had two sons, Ialemus and Orpheus, with Apollo. In another version of the story, the father of Orpheus was the Thracian king Oeagrus, but Apollo adopted him and taught him the skill of lyre while Calliope trained him in singing.
Linus was saidPseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca 1.3.2 to have been the son of Apollo and one of the Muses, either Calliope or Terpsichore or Urania. Rhesus was the son of Strymon and Calliope or Euterpe.
The Sirens were the children of Achelous and Melpomene or Terpsichore. Kleopheme was the daughter of Erato and Malos. Hyacinth was the son of Clio, according to an unpopular account.Apollodorus, 1.3.3
Hymenaeus was assigned as Apollo's son by one of the Muses, either Calliope, or Clio, or Terpsichore, or Urania. Corybantes were the children of Thalia and Apollo.Apollodorus, 1.3.4
Contests Several myths describe contests between the Muses and their challengers.
Thamyris was a poet and musician known for his skill in singing and playing the cithara. He challenged the Muses to a musical contest, boasting that he could overcome them in song and that his voice was better than theirs. According to some accounts, he agreed that if he won he would sleep with all the Muses, but if he lost they could deprive him of whatever they wished. The Muses defeated him and, in their anger, took away his gift of song, made him forget his music, and deprived him of his sight.Homer, Iliad, 2.581D Scholia to the Iliad, 2.595Suda, Theta, 41
The sirens also challenged the Muses. In the sanctuary of Hera in Coroneia was a statue created by Pythodorus of Thebes, depicting Hera holding the sirens. According to the myth, Hera persuaded the sirens to challenge the Muses to a singing contest. After the Muses won, they are said to have plucked the sirens' feathers and used them to make crowns for themselves.Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.34.3Lemprière 768. According to Stephanus of Byzantium, the sirens, overwhelmed by their loss, cast off their feathers from their shoulders, turned white and then threw themselves into the sea. As a result, the nearby city was named Aptera ("featherless") and the nearby islands were called the Leukai ("the white ones").Caroline M. Galt, "A marble fragment at Mount Holyoke College from the Cretan city of Aptera", Art and Archaeology 6 (1920:150). John Tzetzes recounts that after defeating the sirens, the Muses crowned themselves with the sirens' wings, except for Terpsichore who was their mother, adding that the city of Aptera named after this event.Tzetzes, Ad Lycophronem, 653 Furthermore, in one of his letters, Julian the Emperor mentions the Muses' victory over the sirens.Julian the Emperor, Letters, 74
In other stories, nine daughters challenged the Muses. According to a myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses—alluding to the connection of Pieria with the Muses—Pierus, king of Macedon, had nine daughters he named after the nine Muses, believing that their skills were a great match to the Muses. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, the Pierides, being turned into chattering magpies for their presumption.Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.677–78: "Now their previous eloquence also remained in the birds, as well as their strident chattering and their great zeal for speaking." See also Antoninus Liberalis 9. Antoninus Liberalis called them the Emathides and wrote that they were transformed into nine different birds: the grebe, the wryneck, the ortolan, the jay, the greenfinch, the goldfinch, the duck, the woodpecker, and the dracontis pigeon.Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses (Ant.+Lib.), 9
Cult
The Muses had several temples and shrines in ancient Greece, their two main cult centres being Mount Helikon in Boiotia, which holds the Valley of the Muses, and Pieria in Macedonia. Strabo wrote: "Helikon, not far distant from Parnassos, rivals it both in height and in circuit; for both are rocky and covered with snow, and their circuit comprises no large extent of territory. Here are the temple of the Mousai and Hippukrene and the cave of the Nymphai called the Leibethrides; and from this fact one might infer that those who consecrated Helikon to the Mousai were Thrakians, the same who dedicated Pieris and Leibethron and Pimpleia [in Pieria] to the same goddesses. The Thrakians used to be called Pieres, but, now that they have disappeared, the Macedonians hold these places."Strabo, Geography 9. 2. 25 (trans. Jones)