Clio- Greek GodDeity"Muse of History"
Also known as: Kleio, Κλειώ, and Kleiō
Description
The Muse of history — she proclaimed the glory of great deeds and made fame outlast the men who earned it. When she mocked Aphrodite for loving a mortal, the goddess cursed Clio to do the same: she fell for King Pierus of Macedonia and bore him Hyacinthus, the boy Apollo loved and lost.
Mythology & Lore
Daughter of Memory
Zeus lay nine nights with the Titaness Mnemosyne on Mount Pieria, and she bore nine daughters — the Muses. They settled on Helicon, where they danced by night around the violet-dark spring of Hippocrene and the altar of Zeus. Hesiod says the Muses found him on the mountainside while he was shepherding his lambs. "Shepherds of the fields, mere bellies," they called to him — but then they plucked a branch of laurel and gave it to him as a staff, breathed a divine voice into him, and told him to sing of things that were, that are, and that are yet to be. Clio was among those nine voices, and her art was history — the making of fame that outlasts the men who earn it.
Aphrodite's Curse
Clio mocked Aphrodite for her passion for the mortal Adonis — a goddess who kindled desire in others, she taunted, ought not to burn with it herself. Aphrodite cursed her to fall in love with a mortal: Pierus, son of Magnes, a king in Macedonia. The curse took hold, and Clio bore him a son, Hyacinthus.
The boy grew to be so beautiful that Apollo loved him. They spent their days together hunting and throwing the discus. One afternoon Apollo hurled the disc and Hyacinthus ran to catch it. It struck a rock and rebounded into the boy's face — or, in other tellings, a jealous Zephyrus blew it off course. Apollo rushed to him, pressed healing herbs to the wound, and held the boy as the color left his skin. Even the god of medicine could not stop the blood. From the stained grass he raised the hyacinth flower, its petals marked with his cry of grief.