Muses
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses (Ancient Greek: Μοῦσαι, romanized: Moûsai, Greek: Μούσες, romanized: Múses) are 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.
Melete, Aoede, and Mneme are the original Boeotian Muses, and Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania are the nine Olympian Muses.
In modern figurative usage, a muse is a literal person or supernatural force that serves as someone's source of artistic inspiration.
Etymology
The word Muses (Ancient Greek: Μοῦσαι, romanized: Moûsai) perhaps came from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root *men- (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 *men- ('to tower, mountain') since all the most important cult-centers of the Muses were on mountains or hills. R. S. P. Beekes rejects the latter etymology and suggests that a Pre-Greek origin is also possible.
Number and names
In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus cited Homer and Hesiod to the contrary, observing:
- 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 states (Book I.18) that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the satyrs, while passing through Aethiopia (known today as Ethiopia), before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went.
According to Hesiod's account (c. 600 BC), 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 or "Practice", Mneme or "Memory" and Aoide or "Song". The Quaestiones Convivales of Plutarch (46–120 AD) also report three ancient Muses (9.I4.2–4).
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:
- Calliope (epic poetry)
- Clio (history)
- Euterpe (double-pipes and music)
- Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry)
- Melpomene (tragedy)
- Terpsichore (dance)
- Erato (love poetry and lyric poetry)
- Polyhymnia (hymns and sacred poetry)
- Urania (astronomy)
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').[10] Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice.
In Delphi, 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.
Alternatively, later they were called Cephisso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis - names that characterize them as daughters of Apollo.
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. 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 Neilṓ (Νειλώ), Tritṓnē (Τριτώνη), Asōpṓ (Ἀσωπώ), Heptápora (Ἑπτάπορα), Achelōís, Tipoplṓ (Τιποπλώ), and Rhodía (Ῥοδία).
- Wikipedia article: Muses in popular culture
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Muses ]
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