Page 31 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 31

On the fly-leaf at the beginning of the first minute-book is the following
entry in Bro. Turner’s handwriting:
The
Clio
Euterpe Muses
Thalia were Daughters of
Melpomene Jupiter and Mnemosyne.
Terpsichore They presided over
Erato Poetry, Dancing and
Polyhymnia all the Liberal Arts.
}
Calliope The Palm Tree, the Laurel and
Urania all the Fountains of Pindus, Hellicon,
Parnafsus &c were sacred to the Nine.
The Muses were also called Pierides, from having conquered the daughters of
Pierus, a King of Macedonia, who had challenged the Sacred Nine to a Trial in
Music, but failing were changed into Magpies.
This looks as if it had been lifted or adapted from Lemprière’s familiar Classical
Dictionary, first published in 1788. A “Lampriere Esq.” (? Lemprière) joined the
Lodge in its first year.
It may not be superfluous to remind such members as may have escaped,
like the writer, the discipline of a classical education, that in the ancient Greek
mythology the Nine Muses were virgin goddesses who, under the leadership of
Apollo, represented the divine source of the arts, practitioners of which looked to
them for inspiration. Each Muse could be regarded as having one or more of the
arts under her personal care; the commonly accepted attributions are as follows:
Clio, History; Euterpe, Music; Thalia, Pastoral and Comic Poetry; Melpomene,
Tragic Poetry; Terpsichore, Dancing; Erato, Lyrical and Love Poetry; Polyhymnia,
Singing and Rhetoric; Calliope, Heroic Poetry; and Urania, Astronomy.
The selection of arts seems arbitrary, but the cult of the Muses reaches back
to a nomadic race which had no scope for such arts as architecture, sculpture, or
painting, which belong to settled peoples. Music – the very word derives from
the Muses – Dancing and Poetry are universal, and a watch on the movements of
the heavenly bodies gave early man his Kalendar.