Did you know that each of the nine Muses were
associated with different aspects of Art and Science?
Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia! My name is Kelly, and today's video is all about
the nine Muses of ancient Greece, the goddesses of inspiration and creation in the Arts and Sciences.
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The nine Muses of the goddesses of song, dance, music and poetry, and were among
the most important deities of the ancient Greek pantheon as the source of inspiration for poets.
The most common and widespread belief was that the nine Muses were the daughters of the Olympian
god Zeus and the Titan goddess of memory Mnemosyne which makes sense as the Muses were also regarded
as goddesses of knowledge who retained the knowledge of all that had come to pass. They
were born in Pieria at the base of Mount Olympus, and this is all detailed in the Orphic Hymn to the
Muses, which begins, "Daughters of Mnemosyne, daughters of thundering Zeus, Pierian Muses
renowned and illustrious, many shaped and beloved of the mortals you visit." Before there were
nine Muses, there were the three Muses who were worshipped on Helicon in Boeotia, while in Delphi,
three Muses were worshipped as daughters of Apollo, and in Athens, eight Muses were known.
Although the earliest mention of the Muses only has three rather than nine, they were already
being associated with song and memory before their well-known number of nine was established by the
8th Century BCE poet Hesiod, who was the first to give the names of the nine Muses best known today.
Despite their birthplace changing through history, Mount Helicon remained an important
centre with the two main cult sites for the Muses being established there and at Pieria.
As time went on, the nine Muses were each associated with a different kind of art or
science but were still collectively referred to as the Mousai or Muses. The nine Muses are Calliope,
the chief Muse and responsible for epic poetry and rhetoric and also
known as the mother of the gifted lyre player Orpheus; Clio, the goddess of history; Erato,
the goddess of erotic poetry and singing; Urania, the goddess of astronomy; Thalia,
the goddess of comedy; Melpomene, the goddess of tragedy; Euterpe, the goddess of lyric poetry;
Polymnia, the goddess of religious hymns to the gods and Terpsichore, the goddess of dance.
In art, the nine Muses were depicted as beautiful women sometimes with wings and each Muse became
associated with certain objects and symbols that identified their particular talents like
a comedy mask for Thalia and a tragedy mask for Melpomene, a double aulos or flute for Euterpe,
a globe for Urania, a lyre for Erato and a scroll for Clio. The nine Muses didn't really feature
in too many myths but they were still among some of the most important deities in ancient
Greece as they inspired writers and musicians to reach great artistic and intellectual heights.
At the beginning of famous Greek works such as Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" and Hesiod's
"Theogony" and "Works and Days", among others, there is something known today as an Invocation
to the Muse probably the most famous Invocation to the Muses comes at the beginning of the "Iliad"
and goes "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles and its devastation, which put
pains thousandfold upon the Achaeans." And at the beginning if Hesiod's "Theogony," he begins "From
the Muses of Helicon let us begin our singing, that haunt Helicon's great and holy mountain, and
dance on their soft feet around the violet-dark spring and the altar of the mighty son of Kronos."
These poets are calling upon the Muses of song, music, poetry and also knowledge of all that has
come to pass to use them as a mouthpiece for the story they are about to tell. Hesiod even tells us
that the Muses, as the daughters of the goddess of memory, were an aid against forgetfulness,
considering that his works began in oral form. They may be the goddesses of pleasurable things
like song and dance but that doesn't mean that they could be messed with especially when it
came to their superiority of artistic skill. The nine daughters of Pierus foolishly tried
to compete against the nine Muses in music and they were turned into birds for their audacity.
Then there was the Thracian musician Thamyris who was a son of the nymph Argiope, he challenged the
Muses to a music contest and after coming second which was ultimately inevitable, he was punished
by losing his musical talent, his singing voice and he was blinded. Stories like these encouraged
respect for authority figures represented by the deities and the importance of knowing one's place
and keeping to it. What are the figures from your culture comparable to the nine Muses? Let
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