Page 7 - The Muses Nine

THE MUSES

USES WERE GODDESSES who presided over the arts and
1
sciences and inspired those who excelled in these pursuits. The
Mconcept was so persuasive that even today an individual might refer
in figurative language to a personal muses as a source of his or her inspiration.
There were not always nine Muses. Like so many ideas in Greek mythology, their
number represented an evolution from earlier times. Originally three Muses were
worshipped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia; Melete, Mneme and Aoede, referring
to their characterisation of medication, memory and song. Their worship was
said to have been established by Otus and Ephialtes, the so-called Aloeidae. Three
Muses were worshipped also at Sicyon, but we have the name of only one of them,
Polymatheia. Again, three were worshipped at Delphi; their names corresponded
with the names of the three strings of the lyre – Nete, Mese and Hypate. At Delphi
they were alternately called Cephisso, Apollonis and Borysthenis. Four Muses were
at one time recognised – Thelxinoe, Aoede, Arche and Melete – two of the names
having been used before. One of the persons associated with the Muses was Pierus.
By some he was called the father of a total of seven Muses, called Neilo, Tritone,
Asopo, Heptapora, Achelois, Tipoplo and Rhodia. At Athens, eight Muses were
recognised before nine became the standard number.
Not only their number but their parentage varied among the most ancient
writers. Most commonly they were called the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne,
but other parents named were Uranus and Gaea, Pierus and Antiope, Apollo, Zeus
and Plusia, Zeus and Moneta, Zeus and Minerva, or Aether and Gaea. Their
nurse was Eupheme and she brought them up with her son, Crotus.
Their place of birth was generally acknowledged to be Pieria at the foot of
Mount Helicon and Mount Parnassus. Most say their worship was brought
there by the above named Pierus, which somehow conflicts with the story that
he had nine daughters whom he was presumptuous enough to name for the real
Muses. The Muses changed them into birds after defeating them in a musical
contest.

1 Extracts from Women of Classical Mythology, A biographical dictionary. By Robert E Bell.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507977-9.