Muses- Greek GroupCollective"Daughters of Zeus and Memory"

Born in Pieria

Zeus lay with Mnemosyne, the Titan of memory, for nine consecutive nights in the mountains of Pieria, far from the other gods. Nine months later she bore nine daughters, all of one mind, their hearts set on song. The earliest cult at Helicon honored only three: Melete (Practice), Mneme (Memory), and Aoide (Song). Hesiod fixed their number at nine in the Theogony and gave each a name. Apollodorus names Calliope, the eldest, as the mother of Orpheus.

They dance on the peaks of Helicon at night and ascend to Olympus wreathed in mist. Hesiod says they sing of what is, what will be, and what was before: the birth of the gods, the wars of the Titans, and the generations of mortals who live and die beneath them.

Hesiod on Helicon

Hesiod tells how the Muses came to him while he tended sheep beneath the peaks of Helicon. They appeared and spoke first with scorn: "Shepherds of the field, wretched things of shame, mere bellies." Then they breathed divine song into him and gave him a branch of blooming laurel for a staff. "We know how to speak many false things resembling truth," they said, "but we also know, when we wish, how to speak the truth." The shepherd became a poet, and the Theogony he composed begins and ends with their praise.

The Theogony says the Muses pour sweet dew on the tongue of a favored king, so that gentle words flow from his mouth and all the people look to him as he settles disputes. They do the same for poets. The man the Muses love opens his mouth, and grief is forgotten.

Homer opens the Iliad by asking the goddess to sing of Achilles' wrath. The Odyssey begins: "Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways." Before the Catalogue of Ships, he calls on them a second time: the Muses know all things, and no mortal memory could hold what they hold. Pindar invokes them at the opening of his victory odes, as though no praise could stand without their breath.

Apollo's Chorus

Apollo leads the Muses as Musagetes, "Leader of the Muses." The Homeric Hymn to Apollo describes them singing antiphonally on Olympus while the gods feast, Apollo accompanying them on the lyre while the Graces and Horae dance. When the Muses sing, Hesiod says, even a man carrying fresh grief forgets his sorrow.

They sang at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on Mount Pelion. They mourned at Achilles' funeral on the Trojan shore: all nine sang the dirge in turn, and the Odyssey says not a single Greek could hold back tears. Thetis rose from the sea with her Nereids to mourn beside them. For seventeen days gods and mortals wept. On the eighteenth the body was burned in the raiment of the gods, and his white bones were gathered into a golden jar.

Challengers

The nine daughters of King Pierus of Emathia challenged the Muses to a singing contest on Helicon. Ovid tells the story in the Metamorphoses. The Pierides sang of the gods fleeing Typhon, each Olympian taking animal form to escape. Calliope answered. She sang of Persephone in the meadow of Enna, picking flowers when the earth split open and Hades seized her. She sang of Demeter wandering the world with torches, the fields going barren, and the pomegranate seeds that bound her daughter below for a third of every year. The nymphs who judged ruled for the Muses. The Pierides were transformed into magpies. Ovid says they still try to speak, but all that comes out is harsh chattering.

The Thracian bard Thamyris boasted he could defeat the Muses in song. Homer mentions him in the Iliad: they struck him blind and took away his music. He could never sing again. Pausanias records that Hera persuaded the Sirens to compete with the Muses. The Muses won and plucked the Sirens' feathers to wear as crowns.

Helicon and the Springs

Mount Helicon in Boeotia was their principal haunt. Two springs were sacred to them: the Hippocrene, "Horse Spring," struck from the rock by the hoof of Pegasus, and the Aganippe at the mountain's foot. Those who drank might receive the gift of verse. Pausanias visited in the second century CE and described a grove with statues of each Muse, altars for offerings, and portraits of famous poets.

Near Helicon, at Thespiae, the Mouseia festival was held every five years with musical competitions that drew performers from across Greece. Mount Parnassus above Delphi was their other great mountain, shared with Apollo. The Castalian Spring on its slopes was sacred to both god and chorus, and pilgrims washed in its waters before consulting the oracle. In Athens, Plato's Academy contained a shrine to the Muses. The great library at Alexandria was established as a mouseion, a temple dedicated to the daughters of Memory.