This later inconsistency is an example of how clues to the true dating, or chronology, of myths may be determined by the appearance of figures and concepts in Greek myths. 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. Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses the first being daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne.

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. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the early deities, Uranus and Gaia. Īccording to Hesiod's Theogony (7th century BCE), they were daughters of Zeus, the second generation king of the gods, and the offspring of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an artistic inspiration, as when one cites one's own artistic muse, but they also are implicit in words and phrases such as 'a muse', ' museum' (Latinised from mouseion-a place where the muses were worshipped), ' music', and ' musing upon'. Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the muses.Īntiquity set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs ('Apollo Muse-leader'). 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 were born. Sometimes they are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, the Pierides, being turned into chattering magpies for their presumption. In one myth, King Pierus, king of Macedon, had nine daughters he named after the nine Muses, believing that their skills were a great match to the Muses. However the Classical understanding of the muses tripled their triad, set at nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. Gustave Moreau, Hesiod and the Muse (1891)- Musée d'Orsay, Paris They were Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory and Aoide or Song. The Roman scholar Varro relates that there are only three Muses: one who is 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. Three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarch's Quaestiones Conviviviales (9.I4.2–4). It was not until Roman times that the following functions were assigned to them, and even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes: Calliope -epic poetry Clio -history Euterpe -flutes and lyric poetry Thalia -comedy and pastoral poetry Melpomene -tragedy Terpsichore -dance Erato -love poetry Polyhymnia -sacred poetry Urania -astronomy. Hesiod's account and description of the Muses was the one generally followed by the writers of antiquity. The Muses, the personification of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, are the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory personified). ĭiodoris also states (Book I.18) that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the Satyrs or male dancers, while passing through Ethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went. Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them. Diodorus Siculus, quotes Hesiod to the contrary, observing: In Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number. Muse reading a scroll, perhaps Clio (Attic red-figure lekythos, Boeotia c. List of awards and nominations received by Muse.

Definition of a muse