14 Facts About Muses

Roman scholar Varro relates that there are only three Muses: one born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice.

However, the classical understanding of the Muses tripled their triad and established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance.

In Delphi too three Muses were worshiped, but with other names: Nete, Mese, and Hypate, which are assigned as the names of the three chords of the ancient musical instrument, the lyre.

Sometimes the Muses are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris.

Muses thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, the Pierides, being turned into chattering jays for their presumption.

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Muses had several temples and shrines in ancient Greece, their two main cult centres being Mount Helikon in Boiotia and Pieria in Makedonia.

Muses, therefore, were both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: was just "one of the arts of the Muses".

Poet and "law-giver" Solon, the Muses were "the key to the good life"; since they brought both prosperity and friendship.

Muses believed that the Muses would help inspire people to do their best.

Local cults of the Muses often became associated with springs or with fountains.

The Muses themselves were sometimes called Aganippids because of their association with a fountain called Aganippe.

Muses were venerated especially in Boeotia, in the Valley of the Muses near Helicon, and in Delphi and the Parnassus, where Apollo became known as after the sites were rededicated to his cult.

Museia was a festival dedicated to Muses which was held every fifth year on the lower slopes of Mount Helicon in Boeotia.

Muses are explicitly used in modern English to refer to an artistic inspiration, as when one cites one's own artistic muse, and implicit in words and phrases such as amuse, museum, music, and musing upon.