Invoking 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.

Nine Muses · Last reviewed October 24, 2026 · 6 min read

The two great Greek epics both begin by speaking to someone who is not the audience. The Iliad opens with a command to a goddess; the Odyssey opens with a request to a Muse. This opening move is known as the invocation.

It is easy to skim past an invocation as decoration. Read slowly, though, it tells you a lot: what the poet claims to know, where that knowledge comes from, and what kind of poem is coming. This guide looks at how Homer, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns open, using public-domain translations, and gives you a simple way to read any invocation you meet.

"Sing, O goddess": the Iliad

In Samuel Butler's prose translation, the Iliad begins: "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans."

Three things are packed into that first line:

The poet speaks to a goddess, not to listeners.
The verb is "sing." The poet presents the song as hers, with himself as its voice.
The subject arrives at once: one man's anger and its cost.

The goddess is not named here, but the second book makes clear who is meant. Before the long list of Greek leaders and their ships, the poet prays: "And now, O Muses, dwellers in the mansions of Olympus, tell me—for you are goddesses and are in all places so that you see all things, while we know nothing but by report—who were the chiefs and princes of the Danaans?"

That aside is a clear statement of why a poet needs the Muses. Humans know things only "by report"; the Muses saw everything.

Homer does not invoke the Muses only at the start. The Iliad turns to them again at moments that need special authority, such as naming who struck first in a key fight. In Butler's translation:

Book 11: "Tell me now ye Muses that dwell in the mansions of Olympus, who, whether of the Trojans or of their allies, was first to face Agamemnon?"
Book 14: "Tell me now, O Muses that dwell on Olympus, who was the first of the Argives to bear away blood-stained spoils."
Book 16: "And now, tell me, O Muses that hold your mansions on Olympus, how fire was thrown upon the ships of the Achaeans."

Notice the pattern. Each one asks a precise question, usually who was first or how something happened, and each one marks a moment the poet wants to treat as important.

"Tell me, O Muse": the Odyssey

Butler's Odyssey opens: "Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy." A few lines later, after a summary of the hero's troubles, the poet asks again: "Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them."

That second request is worth noticing. The poet does not claim to know where the Muse learned the story; he simply asks her to tell it "from whatsoever source" she knows it. Butler uses Roman names throughout, so "Jove" is Zeus.

Translation changes the feel of an invocation. In his preface, Butler prints the version by Butcher and Lang for comparison, which begins: "Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and wide." If you compare translations, start with the first line; it often shows each translator's whole approach.

Bards and the Muse inside the story

The Odyssey also shows what the Muse means for a working singer. At the Phaeacian court the bard Demodocus is led in, "whom the muse had dearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil, for though she had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had robbed him of his eyesight." Later, "the muse inspired Demodocus to sing the feats of heroes." Odysseus praises him: "You must have studied under the Muse, Jove's daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the return of the Achaeans."

The Iliad gives the dark side. The singer Thamyris "boasted that he would surpass even the Muses," and so "they were angry, and maimed him. They robbed him of his divine power of song." An invocation, in this light, is also an act of humility.

Hesiod: begin with the Muses

Hesiod's Theogony, in Hugh G. Evelyn-White's 1914 translation, opens differently. Instead of a single line, it gives a long hymn: "From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing." Hesiod describes their dances, their song on Olympus and their meeting with him on Helicon before he turns to his real subject. Then comes the request proper: "These things declare to me from the beginning, ye Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus, and tell me which of them first came to be."

The Works and Days opens with a short invocation: "Muses of Pieria who give glory through song, come hither, tell of Zeus your father and chant his praise." Interestingly, this prelude was not accepted everywhere. The travel writer Pausanias, in W. H. S. Jones's 1918 translation, says the Boeotians living around Helicon "reject the prelude to the Muses, saying that the poem begins with the account of the Strifes."

The Homeric Hymns: a formula in action

The collection known as the Homeric Hymns, also in Evelyn-White's translation, shows how standard the opening could be. Several hymns begin with almost the same words:

"Muse, sing of Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia."
"Muse, tell me the deeds of golden Aphrodite the Cyprian."
"Muse, tell me about Pan, the dear son of Hermes."
"Sing, clear-voiced Muses, of Hephaestus famed for inventions."

The short hymn to the Muses and Apollo explains the logic in one sentence: "For it is through the Muses and Apollo that there are singers upon the earth and players upon the lyre."

Where invocation leads: Plato's warning

Later thinkers took the poets at their word, sometimes uncomfortably. In Plato's Ion, in Benjamin Jowett's translation, Socrates compares the Muse to a magnet that passes its pull down a chain of iron rings, from poet to performer to audience. "For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired," he says. It is half praise and half criticism: if the poet's skill comes from outside, does the poet really know what he is talking about?

How to read an invocation

When you meet an invocation in any poem, ancient or modern, ask four questions:

Who is addressed: one Muse, all of them, or an unnamed goddess?
What is asked for: to sing, to tell, to remember, or to choose where to begin?
What does the poet admit not knowing?
Where in the poem does it come: the opening, or just before a crucial moment?

Key takeaways

The Iliad opens "Sing, O goddess," and the Odyssey "Tell me, O Muse" in Butler's translations.
Homer explains the need for the Muses: they see all things, while humans "know nothing but by report."
The Iliad repeats invocations at important moments, usually asking precise "who" or "how" questions.
Hesiod opens with a long hymn to the Muses; Pausanias says some Boeotians rejected the Works and Days prelude.
The Homeric Hymns turn the invocation into a formula, such as "Muse, sing of Hermes."

Sources

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