Greek mythology and the arts, explained.
Plain-English guides to the nine Muses, the gods and heroes of Greek myth, and how myth has inspired art, poetry and music for thousands of years. Every guide links to its sources, starting with the ancient texts themselves.
Articles
18 articles
Who Were the Nine Muses? What Hesiod's Theogony Tells Us
Meet the nine Muses as Hesiod first described them: daughters of Zeus and Memory, their names, their gifts to poets and rulers, and where ancient versions disagree.
Read · 6 min read →Meet the MusesThe Nine Muses and Their Arts: Who Got What, and When
How each Muse came to be linked with an art, from Hesiod's shared song to Plato and an anonymous Latin poem, with a quick reference and the places sources disagree.
Read · 6 min read →Meet the MusesMnemosyne: Why Memory Is the Mother of the Muses
Who Mnemosyne was in Hesiod, why Greek poets made Memory the Muses' mother, and how memory appears at an oracle, on a gold tablet and in Plato.
Read · 5 min read →Meet the MusesMount Helicon and the Hippocrene: Where the Muses Lived
A guide to the Muses' places, from Helicon and its springs to Olympus and Pieria, with what Hesiod, Ovid and the traveler Pausanias say about each.
Read · 6 min read →Meet the MusesInvoking the Muse: How Homer and Hesiod Open Their Poems
How the Iliad, the Odyssey, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns call on the Muses, what each invocation claims, and four questions to ask of any invocation you read.
Read · 6 min read →Meet the MusesFrom Muses to Museums: Plato, Alexandria and a Word's Journey
How the Muses moved from poetry into philosophy, a royal community of scholars in Alexandria, Hellenistic and Roman art, and finally the English word museum.
Read · 5 min read →Greek Myths ExplainedThe Olympian Gods Explained: Family, Roles and the Twelve
Who the Olympian gods were, how Hesiod and Homer say they came to power, why ancient lists of the twelve differ, and how to match Greek and Roman names.
Read · 6 min read →Greek Myths ExplainedPrometheus and the Gift of Fire: Hesiod's Story and Later Twists
How Hesiod tells the trick at Mecone, the stolen fire and Pandora's jar, and how later writers turned Prometheus into a teacher of the arts and even a maker of humans.
Read · 6 min read →Greek Myths ExplainedDemeter and Persephone: The Homeric Hymn and Its Rival Versions
A walk through the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, from the narcissus in the meadow to the rites at Eleusis, with the places where Ovid and Apollodorus tell it differently.
Read · 6 min read →Greek Myths ExplainedOrpheus and Eurydice: What Virgil, Ovid and Plato Each Tell Us
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice as Virgil, Ovid, Apollodorus and Plato tell it, side by side, including where they disagree on her death, the rule and the ending.
Read · 5 min read →Greek Myths ExplainedThe Trojan War in Brief: The Iliad and the Lost Epic Cycle
The whole Trojan War in order, from the Judgment of Paris to the homecomings, showing what the Iliad covers, what came from the lost Epic Cycle and where sources differ.
Read · 6 min read →Greek Myths ExplainedOdysseus's Journey Home: The Odyssey's Route and Return
A guide to the Odyssey's structure, Odysseus's route from the Cicons to Calypso, his return to Ithaca in disguise, and the rival ancient accounts of his death.
Read · 6 min read →Myth in Art & CreativityHow to Read a Greek Vase: Shape, Technique, Scene and Maker
A four-question method for reading Greek vases in museums: what the shape was for, black- or red-figure technique, who is in the scene and who made it.
Read · 6 min read →Myth in Art & CreativityMyth in Renaissance Painting: Raphael, Botticelli and Titian
What Raphael's Parnassus, Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, and Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne show, and how they compare with ancient texts.
Read · 6 min read →Myth in Art & CreativityGreek Myth in English Poetry: Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson
How Milton, Wordsworth, Keats and Tennyson reshaped Greek myth, read beside the translations, notes and ancient texts behind their poems.
Read · 5 min read →Myth in Art & CreativityMyth in Music: Orpheus at the Opera and Apollo at the Ballet
From Peri and Monteverdi to Gluck and Stravinsky: how the Orpheus myth shaped early opera and how composers changed the ancient story.
Read · 6 min read →Myth in Art & CreativityWriting Prompts From the Muses: 18 Exercises From Ancient Texts
Eighteen original creative writing prompts, each built on a quoted public-domain passage from Hesiod, Homer, Ovid, Virgil or Keats.
Read · 5 min read →Myth in Art & CreativitySeeing Greek Art in Museums: Copies, Color, Repairs and Labels
What to look for in the Greek galleries: Roman versions of lost originals, old restorations, traces of paint and the wording on museum labels.
Read · 6 min read →Glossary
54 Gods, heroes, places and terms from Greek myth explained in a sentence or three, from Aegis to Zeus.