les Muses n'étaient connues qu'au nombre de trois : Mélété (la Pratique), Mnémé (Mémoire) et Aoedè (Chant).

Hesiodus, Theogonia, 1-104

• Let us begin our song from the Heliconian Muses, who live on the great and holy mountain of Helicon, and dance with their tender feet around the violet-coloured spring

Dances

• they begin to make their beautiful, lovely dances on the top of Helicon, stepping strongly with their feet

Singing in the night

• From there they fly up, covered in a thick mist, [10] and go about in the night , singing with most beautiful voices

To sing is to hymn the gods

• hymning Zeus the aegis-bearer and noble Argive Hera who walks on golden sandals, and grey-eyed Athena, daughter of the aegis-bearing Zeus, and Phoebus Apollo and Artemis who delights in arrows, and Poseidon who holds and shakes the earth, and revered Themis, and Aphrodite with her curling glances, and golden-wreathed Hebe and beautiful Dione, and Leto and Iapetus and Cronos the subtle counsellor, and Eos and great Helios and bright Selene, [20] and Earth and great Oceanus and black Night, and the holy race of all the other everlasting immortals

Muses as teachers

• It was the Muses who once taught Hesiod beautiful song, while he was shepherding

• The first word spoken to me by the goddesses, the Olympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, was this:

• 'Shepherds of the wild, shameful creatures, nothing but bellies, we know how to speak many false things as if they were true, and we know, when we wish, how to utter true things as well.'

Inspiration

• and they breathed into me a heavenly voice, so I might celebrate things to come and things past

The Muses first

• They commanded me to hymn the race of blessed everlasting gods, and always to sing of themselves, the Muses, both first and last

• Come then, let us begin from the Muses, whose hymns delight the great heart of Zeus their father in Olympus, speaking of what is, what will be, and what has been, agreeing with their voices

Order

• Uttering their immortal voice they praise first in song the revered race of gods from the beginning, the gods whose parents were Earth and broad Heaven, and the gods who were born from them, givers of good gifts

• Next, as they begin and as they end their song, they hymn Zeus, father of gods and men, saying how much he is the greatest and strongest of the gods

Men and Giants

• And then they hymn the race of men and strong Giants

Memory and Oblivion

• It was Memory, who rules the hills of Eleuther, who bore them of her union with the father, the son of Cronos, as a way of forgetting evils and an intermission of sufferings

• (Memory) bore nine daughters, all of like mind, the concern of whose hearts is song, and whose spirit is free of care

Music and Earth

• Then they went to Olympus, rejoicing in their beautiful voice, with undying song and dance: the dark earth rang about them as they sang their hymn, and a lovely clamour rose from beneath their feet as they went to their father

• For it is through the Muses and far-shooting Apollo that there are singers and players of the kithara upon the earth, and through Zeus that there are kings

How to forget troubles

• He whom the Muses love is happy, for a sweet voice flows from his mouth.

• For if someone has grief in his new-troubled spirit, and is in fear, distressed in his heart, still, when a singer [100] servant of the Muses, hymns the glories of men of the past and of the blessed gods who live on Olympus, at once he forgets his miseries and remembers his troubles no more

Sappho: music and memory

• "Dead you shall lie, for ever, a name that none recall; For never you gathered roses upon the Muses' tree.Dim as you were in living, there too in Hades’ hall You shall drift where only phantoms faint and forgotten flee."

• [Sappho of Mytilene, born c. 610 BC; Diehl, I, p.354]

Plato

• "And a third kind of possession and madness comes from the Muses. This takes hold upon a gentle and pure soul, arouses it and inspires it to songs and other poetry

• But he who without the divine madness comes to the doors of the Muses, confident that he will be a good poet by art, meets with no success, and the poetry of the sane man vanishes into nothingness before that of the inspired madmen."

• [Plato. Phaedrus 245a]

Origins in the Myths

• All things originate in the myths, which are the cradle and preview both of those things that are, and of those that should be

• But the myths, a Sacred All-embracing True Tale which depend on nothing except language, are told to men by the Muses.

Wedding of Eros and Psykhe• Apollo sang to the lyre, and Venus

[Aphrodite] took to the floor to the strains of sweet music, and danced prettily. ’

• She had organized the performance so that the Musae sang in chorus, a Satyrus played the flute, and a Paniscus [a Pan] sang to the shepherd’s pipes

Wedding and spells

• "[At the wedding of Peleus & Thetis there was seen] the ravishing dance twined by the Kharites' (Graces) feet ... [and heard] the chant the Mousai raised, and how its spell enthralled all mountains, rivers, all the forest brood; how raptured was the infinite firmament, Kheiron's fair caverns, yea, the very Gods." - Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 4.128

Funeral of Akhilleus

• Then those Divine Ones round Akhilleus' corpse pealed forth with one voice from immortal lips a lamentation. Rang again the shores of Hellespont. As rain upon the earth their tears fell round the dead man, Aiakos' son; for out of depths of sorrow rose their moan. And all the armour, yea, the tents, the ships of that great sorrowing multitude were wet with tears from ever-welling springs of grief ...

Dionysos

• "They say also that when he [Dionysos] went abroad he was accompanied by the Mousai, who were maidens that had received an unusually excellent education, and that by their songs and dancing and other talents in which they had been instructed these maidens delighted the heart of the god." - Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.4.3

The Hyperborians

• Beyond the North Wind lies a paradise, the country of the Hyperboreans, the blessed people of Apollo.

• Untoched by ilness or old age, in perpetual peace and ease, they spent their days in fasting

Musical paradise and peace

• And the Muses, in accord with their ways

• Does not forsake that land:

• Dance-choruses of girls are everywhere

• Music, song and dance, toghether with the rituals and the atletic games, are the most characteristic manifestation of a civilized community in peacetime.

Unmusical war

• The grimmness o´f war is expressed by calling it:

• ”danceless, lyreless, generating tears”

• Sappho:

• ”In a house of the Muse’s servant it’s not right for there to lament … it would not befit us”

Calliope (Beautiful Voice) – epic poetry. (Mother of Orpheus)

Clio (kleos(glory) / kleiein (to celebrate) / Celebration/Fame) – history.

Erato (eros (love) Lovely One) – love poetry.

Euterpe (Delight) – music

Melpomene (melpein (to sing) the Singing goddess) – tragedy.

Polyhymnia (poly (many) and hymnos (hymn) or mnasthai (to remember) Many Songed/Hymned) – sacred poetry. (considered also as inventor of the lyre)

Terpsichore (Delight of dancing/choruses) – dance.

Thalia (thallein (to bloom), Festivity) – comedy

Urania (ouranos (sky) Heavenly One)

Urania - Astronomy (First Mover) (Astronomy as a science / poetry as "harmony of spheres")

LE SUEUR, Eustache The Muses: Clio, Euterpe and Thalia1652-55