The Nine Muses and Their Arts: Who Got What, and When

You may have seen a list that gives each Muse a tidy job: Clio for history, Urania for astronomy, Calliope for epic, and so on. It is a useful shorthand, but it is not where the story starts. The earliest full account, Hesiod's Theogony, names nine Muses and gives none of them a separate art.

The specialties grew up afterward, in different writers, and they did not always match. This guide shows where the familiar assignments come from, quoting only public-domain translations, and points out the places where ancient sources disagree. It ends with a quick reference you can use when you meet a Muse in a poem or a museum.

Hesiod: nine names, one song

In Hugh G. Evelyn-White's 1914 translation of the Theogony, the Muses are "Cleio and Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene and Terpsichore, and Erato and Polyhymnia and Urania and Calliope." Hesiod singles out only Calliope, "the chiefest of them all, for she attends on worshipful princes." Otherwise the nine act as a chorus, "all of one mind, whose hearts are set upon song."

So if you read that a Greek poet of Hesiod's time prayed to "the Muse of history," be suspicious. In Hesiod and Homer, the Muses inspire song without any such division of labor.

Names that carry meanings

Greek writers did notice that the names themselves seemed to mean something. The historian Diodorus of Sicily, in C. H. Oldfather's Loeb translation, explains each one. Treat these as ancient explanations rather than settled etymology; the Loeb editor notes that modern scholars do not even agree on where the word "Muse" comes from. Still, they show how Greeks heard the names:

• Cleio, from kleos, "great glory," which poets give to those they praise.
• Euterpe, from terpein, "delight."
• Thaleia, from thallein, "flourish," because people praised in poems flourish for a long time.
• Melpomene, from the chanting by which she charms listeners.
• Terpsichore, because she "delights" her followers.
• Erato, because she makes her pupils "desired and worthy to be loved."
• Polymnia, from her great (polle) praises (humnesis).
• Urania, from ouranos, "heaven," because thought lifts the soul to heavenly heights.
• Calliope, from her beautiful (kale) voice (ops).

Diodorus adds that "to each of the Muses men assign her special aptitude for one of the branches of the liberal arts," and he lists examples such as "poetry, song, pantomimic dancing, the round dance with music, the study of the stars." But he does not match those arts to particular names.

Plato's partial map

Plato does match some arts to names. In the Phaedrus, Socrates tells a story, in Benjamin Jowett's translation, about grasshoppers who report to the Muses on how people honor them. "They win the love of Terpsichore for the dancers by their report of them; of Erato for the lovers," he says, and of "Calliope the eldest Muse and of Urania who is next to her, for the philosophers."

That gives us four Muses with recognizable patches: Terpsichore and dance, Erato and love, and Calliope and Urania with philosophy and "heaven and thought." The other five are left as "the other Muses."

A full list, and a surprise

A complete nine-part scheme appears in a short Latin poem called "The Names of the Muses." It has long been printed with the works of the Roman poet Ausonius, but his 1921 Loeb translator, again Hugh G. Evelyn-White, places it in an appendix of poems that "though ordinarily edited with the works of Ausonius, are in fact anonymous." In his translation:

• "Clio, singing of famous deeds, restores times past to life."
• "Euterpe's breath fills the sweet-voiced flutes."
• "Thalia rejoices in the loose speech of comedy."
• "Melpomene cries aloud with the echoing voice of gloomy tragedy."
• "Terpsichore with her lyre stirs, swells, and governs the emotions."
• "Erato bearing the plectrum harmonises foot, song and voice in the dance."
• "Urania examines the motions of the heaven and stars."
• "Calliope commits heroic songs to writing."
• "Polymnia expresses all things with her hands and speaks by gesture."

The poem closes with Apollo: "Phoebus sits in their midst and in himself possesses all their gifts."

Here is the surprise. In this poem, Erato is the dancer and Terpsichore plays the lyre, which does not match Plato, who links Terpsichore to dancers and Erato to lovers. Even a complete list does not settle the question.

Families, rivals and later stories

Later mythographers also gave individual Muses their own children and quarrels, and here too the sources disagree. In Sir James George Frazer's 1921 translation of the Library attributed to Apollodorus:

• Calliope bore Linus and Orpheus, the legendary singer.
• Euterpe bore Rhesus, "but some say his mother was Calliope."
• Melpomene was the mother of the Sirens.

A fragment attributed to Hesiod, in Evelyn-White's collection, says instead, "So Urania bare Linus," and Pausanias reports that Linus was "a son of Urania and Amphimarus." Pausanias also calls it one of the "many untruths believed by the Greeks" that Orpheus was a son of Calliope.

The Sirens connection turns up in art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a Roman marble sarcophagus from the third quarter of the third century CE that, in the museum's words, shows "a musical contest between the Muses and Sirens," in which the Muses "are defeating the Sirens."

Quick reference: the nine and their arts

Use this list as a guide to later convention, not as ancient law. Each entry names the source for the role.

• Clio: history, "famous deeds" and "times past" (the anonymous Latin poem).
• Euterpe: flute music (the Latin poem).
• Thalia: comedy (the Latin poem).
• Melpomene: tragedy (the Latin poem); mother of the Sirens in Apollodorus.
• Terpsichore: dance (Plato); the lyre and the emotions (the Latin poem).
• Erato: love (Plato); the plectrum and dance (the Latin poem).
• Polyhymnia or Polymnia: gesture and expression with the hands (the Latin poem).
• Urania: the heavens and stars (the Latin poem); with Calliope, philosophy (Plato).
• Calliope: heroic or epic song (the Latin poem); the eldest Muse (Plato) and the chief one (Hesiod).

When you meet a Muse in a painting or statue, look for the clue the Latin poem would predict: flutes, a lyre or plectrum, writing, a gesture, or the heavens. Then read the museum's label, because artists and curators do not always follow one scheme.

Key takeaways

• Hesiod names nine Muses but gives each no separate art; they sing together.
• Diodorus explains the names through Greek word-play and says the Muses were matched to branches of the liberal arts, without assigning each one.
• Plato links Terpsichore to dancers, Erato to lovers, and Calliope and Urania to philosophers.
• The full nine-part list comes from an anonymous Latin poem printed with Ausonius, and it swaps the roles Plato gives Terpsichore and Erato.
• Ancient sources also disagree about the Muses' children, such as the parents of Linus and Orpheus.

Sources

• Hesiod, Theogony and Fragments, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica (1914), Project Gutenberg eBook #348
• Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.7, trans. C. H. Oldfather (Loeb, 1935), LacusCurtius
• Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Project Gutenberg eBook #1636
• Ausonius, vol. II, Appendix to Ausonius, "The Names of the Muses," trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1921), Internet Archive
• Apollodorus, The Library 1.3, trans. Sir James George Frazer (1921), Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.29, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1918), Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.30, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1918), Perseus Digital Library
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marble sarcophagus with the contest between the Muses and the Sirens (10.104)