Melpomene- Greek GodDeity"Muse of Tragedy"

The Singer

Melpomene was born to Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne after nine consecutive nights together on Mount Pieria — one of nine daughters who dwell on Helicon, where they dance around the violet-dark spring of Hippocrene. Hesiod met them there when he was a shepherd; they called him a mere belly, then breathed song into him and gave him a laurel staff. Together the nine sang for the gods on Olympus, their voices easing grief and making even Zeus forget his cares.

Melpomene's name means "the singer," rooted in choral lament. Her province became staged tragedy, the art performed each year at the festivals of Dionysus in Athens, where three playwrights presented trilogies and competed for a crown of ivy. Under her patronage, Sophocles showed Oedipus discovering he had killed his father and married his mother, and Euripides put Medea's terrible choice before an audience of thousands. In art she holds the tragic mask — the open-mouthed face of grief — and carries a sword or club. She wears the cothurnus, the thick-soled boots that lifted tragic actors above the chorus, and an ivy wreath that ties her to Dionysus, in whose honor every tragedy was staged.

Mother of the Sirens

One tradition names Melpomene as the mother of the Sirens by the river god Achelous. The Sirens perched on their island and sang to every ship that passed — a song so beautiful that sailors forgot their course and steered onto the rocks. Odysseus survived only because he stopped his crew's ears with wax and had himself lashed to the mast, hearing the song but unable to follow it to his death. In one telling, the Muses themselves challenged the Sirens to a singing contest. The Muses won and plucked the feathers from the Sirens' wings, weaving them into crowns. Other sources name Terpsichore or Sterope as the Sirens' mother.