Nine Muses glossary

Key names, places, and terms from the world of the nine Muses, the Greek myths, and the art and poetry they inspired. Ancient authors often tell the same story differently, so the definitions point out where versions disagree. Quotations from ancient texts come from public-domain English translations, with the translator named.

Ages of Man: Hesiod's story in Works and Days of five human races made one after another: golden, silver, bronze, a godlike race of heroes, and the present "race of iron" (Evelyn-White translation). Ovid's Metamorphoses tells a four-age version, gold, silver, brass, and iron, with no age of heroes.; Related:Hesiod Metamorphoses Pandora
Apollo Musagetes: Apollo in his role as leader of the Muses. The Homeric Hymn to the Muses and Apollo says "it is through the Muses and Apollo that there are singers upon the earth" (Evelyn-White translation), and Diodorus Siculus, retelling an Egyptian account of Osiris and his musicians, reports that Apollo was called Musegetes because he led the Muses.; Related:Muse Lyre Homeric Hymns
Attribute: In art, an object that identifies a figure, such as Melpomene's tragic mask or Urania's globe; the whole system of such conventions is called iconography. The earliest art showed the Muses mainly with musical instruments, and giving each of the nine her own attribute came later.; Related:Melpomene Urania Clio
Aulos: A Greek double-reed wind instrument, one of the three the Metropolitan Museum of Art says the Greeks especially favored for composition and performance. Older English translations often call it a "flute," as when Butler's Iliad describes youths dancing "to the music of flute and lyre."; Related:Euterpe Lyre Syrinx
Bard: A singer of tales in the Homeric world, like Demodocus in the Odyssey, to whom the Muse "had given both good and evil": the gift of song, but not his eyesight (Butler translation). Hesiod calls such a singer "the servant of the Muses" (Evelyn-White translation), and Evelyn-White describes later reciters of Homer, called rhapsodes, chanting a hymn as a prelude.; Related:Muse Thamyris Homeric Hymns
Black-figure: An Athenian vase-painting technique in which figures were painted in a slip that turned black in firing, against the natural color of the clay, with details incised or added in white and purple. The Metropolitan Museum of Art says black- and red-figure were used in Athens from the beginning of the sixth to the end of the fourth century B.C.; Related:Red-figure Attribute
Calliope: The Muse later linked with epic poetry; Diodorus Siculus derived her name from the Greek words for beautiful (kale) and voice (ops). Hesiod calls her "the chiefest of them all" (Evelyn-White translation), Apollodorus names her as the mother of Orpheus, and in Ovid's Metamorphoses she is the Muse who sings against the daughters of Pierus.; Related:Epic Orpheus Pierides
Chaos: In Hesiod's Theogony, the first thing that came to be, followed by Earth, Tartarus, and Eros; Erebus and Night came forth from Chaos. Ovid's Metamorphoses pictures Chaos differently, as "a rude and undigested mass" (Riley translation) that a god sorted into the elements.; Related:Theogony Metamorphoses
Chorus: The group of performers who sang and danced in Greek drama, on the orchestra, the theater's flat dancing floor. Aristotle credits Aeschylus with adding a second actor and reducing the chorus's role, yet says the chorus "should be regarded as one of the actors" (Butcher translation).; Related:Tragedy Dithyramb Terpsichore
Clio: Also spelled Cleio, the Muse later linked with history, usually shown in later art seated with an open scroll or a chest of books. Diodorus Siculus tied her name to kleos, the glory that poets' praise bestows, and Apollodorus makes her the mother of Hyacinth.; Related:Muse Attribute Calliope
Comedy: Drama meant to amuse, which Aristotle calls "an imitation of characters of a lower type" (Butcher translation). According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Athenian Old Comedy mocked mythology and prominent citizens, while the later New Comedy of Menander turned to private and family life.; Related:Thalia Satyr play Chorus
Dithyramb: A Greek poem or song in honor of Dionysus; Merriam-Webster notes that the origin of the word dithyrambos is unknown. Aristotle names the authors of the dithyramb as the starting point of tragedy.; Related:Tragedy Chorus
Ekphrasis: From the Greek for "description": a vivid literary description of a scene or, more often, a work of art. A famous early example is the shield made for Achilles in Book 18 of the Iliad, covered with the earth, the heavens, the sea, and two cities (Butler's translation calls the smith god by his Roman name, Vulcan).; Related:Epic Homer
Eleusinian Mysteries: Secret rites of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter says the goddess taught her rites to the leaders of Eleusis, mysteries no one may reveal, "for deep awe of the gods checks the voice" (Evelyn-White translation), and promises the initiated a happier lot after death.; Related:Persephone Homeric Hymns
Epic: In the Poetry Foundation's definition, "a long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic or historical significance." The Iliad and Odyssey are the Greek models, and Evelyn-White's notes to Hesiod call Calliope "queen of Epic poetry."; Related:Calliope Epic Cycle Epithet
Epic Cycle: A group of early Greek epics, now known only from fragments and later summaries, that filled in stories around the Iliad and Odyssey. Its Trojan poems were the Cyprian Lays, the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, the Sack of Troy, the Returns, and the Telegony, and a Theban group told the story of Oedipus's family.; Related:Homer Epic Titanomachy
Epithet: A descriptive word or phrase joined by fixed association to a name, such as "bright-eyed Athene" in Evelyn-White's Hesiod or the Homeric "wine-dark sea." Merriam-Webster traces the word to a Greek verb meaning "to put on" or "to add."; Related:Epic Homer
Erato: The Muse later linked with love poetry. Diodorus Siculus said she makes her pupils "desired and worthy to be loved" (Oldfather translation), and in Plato's Phaedrus the singing "grasshoppers" (Jowett's translation) that report to the Muses win Erato's love for lovers.; Related:Terpsichore Muse
Euterpe: The Muse later linked with lyric poetry, often shown in later art with a pipe that older reference books call a flute (see aulos). Diodorus Siculus derived her name from terpein, to delight, and Apollodorus makes her the mother of Rhesus, killed by Diomedes at Troy, while noting that some called Calliope his mother instead.; Related:Aulos Calliope
Hesiod: A Greek poet whose father, he says, settled at Ascra near Mount Helicon, and who credits the Muses with teaching him song; the Theogony and Works and Days are his best-known poems. The historian Herodotus thought Hesiod and Homer lived four hundred years before his own time "and not more" and called them the ones "who made a theogony for the Hellenes" (Macaulay translation); their exact dates are still debated.; Related:Theogony Ages of Man Mount Helicon
Hippocrene: The "Horse's Fountain" (W. H. S. Jones's translation of Pausanias) on Mount Helicon, where Hesiod already pictures the Muses bathing in "the Horse's Spring" (Evelyn-White translation). Pausanias records that it was made by the horse of Bellerophon striking the ground with his hoof, and Ovid names that horse as Pegasus.; Related:Pegasus Mount Helicon
Homer: The name the Greeks gave to the poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, to whom the Homeric Hymns were also ascribed. Both epics open by calling on the Muse: the Odyssey begins "Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide" (Butler translation).; Related:Invocation Epic Homeric Hymns
Homeric Hymns: A collection of thirty-three Greek hymns to the gods, ascribed to Homer but composed at different dates; Evelyn-White's 1914 introduction says the Hymn to Apollo itself joins two originally separate poems, one Delian and one Pythian. Some are short preludes, while longer ones, such as the hymns to Demeter and Hermes, tell full myths.; Related:Homer Persephone Lyre
In medias res: Latin for "into the midst of things": starting a story in the middle of the action. The idea goes back to Horace's Art of Poetry, which praises Homer because "he always hastens on to the event" instead of tracing the Trojan War back to Leda's eggs (Smart translation).; Related:Epic Homer
Invocation: A poet's appeal to a Muse or god for help, usually at the opening of a work, as in "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles" at the start of Butler's Iliad. Homer repeats the move before demanding passages, asking the Muses to name the Greek leaders because "we know nothing but by report."; Related:Muse Homer Epic
Library of Apollodorus: A prose handbook of Greek myths and family trees, known in Greek as the Bibliotheca, that has come down under the name Apollodorus. It was once credited to the second-century B.C. scholar Apollodorus, but that attribution is now rejected, so the unknown author is often called Pseudo-Apollodorus; the work is generally dated to the second century A.D. Its plain summaries, such as its list of all nine Muses with Calliope first, make it a standard reference for comparing versions of a myth.; Related:Orpheus Thamyris Calliope
Lyre: A Greek string instrument that the Homeric Hymn to Hermes says the newborn Hermes invented, using a tortoise shell, reeds, ox hide, and "seven strings of sheep-gut" (Evelyn-White translation). The Metropolitan Museum of Art names the lyre, the plucked kithara, and the aulos as the three instruments the Greeks especially favored for composition and performance.; Related:Apollo Musagetes Aulos Orpheus
Melpomene: The Muse later linked with tragedy, shown in later art with a tragic mask and sometimes the club of Heracles or a sword. Diodorus Siculus connected her name with the chanting by which she charms listeners, and Apollodorus names her as mother of the Sirens by the river god Achelous.; Related:Tragedy Thalia Attribute
Metamorphoses: Ovid's long Latin poem of transformation myths, which announces its design "to speak of forms changed into new bodies" (Riley translation) and runs from the beginning of the world to Ovid's own time. It uses Roman names such as Jupiter and Ceres and often tells stories differently from Greek sources, so it is a common reason versions of a myth disagree.; Related:Chaos Pierides Ages of Man
Mnemosyne: The goddess whose name means Memory, one of the Titan children of Earth and Heaven in Hesiod's Theogony. Hesiod says she bore the nine Muses to Zeus in Pieria after he lay with her for nine nights, and he calls them "a forgetting of ills and a rest from sorrow" (Evelyn-White translation, 1914).; Related:Muse Titans Theogony
Mount Helicon: A mountain in Boeotia sacred to the Muses. Hesiod opens the Theogony with "the Heliconian Muses" (Evelyn-White translation) and says they taught him song while he shepherded lambs below the mountain; Pausanias describes their grove there, where the people of Thespiae held games called the Museia.; Related:Hippocrene Hesiod Three Muses of Helicon
Mount Parnassus: A mountain in central Greece that rises above Apollo's sanctuary at Delphi and was sacred to the Muses as well; Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology notes that the Muses had a temple there near the Castalian spring. Pausanias places the water of Castalia on the way to the sanctuary at Delphi and records several rival stories about how the spring got its name.; Related:Apollo Musagetes Raphael's Parnassus
Mouseion: The Greek word for a place devoted to the Muses, and the root of the English word museum. The most famous was the Museum at Alexandria, which the geographer Strabo describes as part of the royal palaces, with a public walk, an exedra with seats, and a common mess-hall for the men of learning who shared it (H. L. Jones translation).; Related:Muse
Muse: One of the Greek goddesses of song, poetry, and the arts, whom poets called on for inspiration. Hesiod's Theogony makes them the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, though other ancient writers gave them different parents and numbers. Hesiod names the nine but gives them no separate arts; the familiar one-art-per-Muse assignments come from later Greek and Roman writers and artists, and they vary from source to source. In English, a lowercase "muse" can also mean any person or thing that inspires an artist.; Related:Mnemosyne Three Muses of Helicon Invocation
Orpheus: A legendary singer who, in Apollodorus's words, "by his songs moved stones and trees" (Frazer translation). He went down to Hades to bring back his wife Eurydice but lost her when he turned to look at her before reaching home; Apollodorus makes him a son of the Muse Calliope and says he was torn apart by Maenads and buried in Pieria.; Related:Calliope Library of Apollodorus Lyre
Pandora: The first woman in Hesiod's telling, made by the gods at Zeus's command as "the price of fire" (Evelyn-White translation). In Works and Days she lifts the lid of a great jar and scatters evils among people, leaving only Hope inside; the Theogony tells the story without naming her, and the jar became a "box" only in later retellings, a change Encyclopaedia Britannica traces to the 16th-century humanist Erasmus.; Related:Prometheus Ages of Man Hesiod
Pegasus: The winged horse that, according to Hesiod, sprang from Medusa when Perseus cut off her head, named for the springs (pegae) of Ocean near which he was born. Hesiod says Pegasus lives in the house of Zeus and brings him thunder and lightning, and Ovid credits his hoof with opening the Hippocrene spring on Helicon.; Related:Hippocrene Metamorphoses
Persephone: The daughter of Demeter, carried off by Hades to be his queen. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hades secretly gives her a pomegranate seed, so she must spend a third part of each year below and the rest with her mother; Ovid's Metamorphoses, which calls her Proserpine, has Jupiter divide the year "equally" between them instead (Riley translation).; Related:Eleusinian Mysteries Homeric Hymns Metamorphoses
Pierides: A name with two meanings. It can mean the Muses themselves, after Pieria near Mount Olympus, where Hesiod says they were born; it also names the nine daughters of Pierus, who in Ovid's Metamorphoses challenge the Muses to a singing contest judged by nymphs, lose, and are turned into magpies.; Related:Muse Metamorphoses Thamyris
Polyhymnia: Also spelled Polymnia, the Muse later linked with sacred hymns. Diodorus Siculus explained her name from the Greek words for great (polle) and praises (humnesis), and in later art she usually appears without any attribute, in a thoughtful, meditating pose.; Related:Homeric Hymns Attribute
Prometheus: The son of the Titan Iapetus, who outwits Zeus on behalf of humans. In Hesiod he steals fire "in a hollow fennel stalk" (Evelyn-White translation), and Zeus punishes him with chains and an eagle that eats his liver every day until Heracles kills the bird.; Related:Pandora Titans Hesiod
Raphael's Parnassus: A fresco by Raphael in the Room of the Segnatura in the Vatican, part of a cycle the Vatican Museums date to 1508 through 1511. Apollo sits at the center playing among the nine Muses and poets ancient and modern, including a blind Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Sappho.; Related:Mount Parnassus Apollo Musagetes Homer
Red-figure: The reverse of black-figure: figures stay the color of the clay while the background is painted black, so details can be drawn with a brush. The Metropolitan Museum of Art says it was invented around 530 B.C., "quite possibly by the potter Andokides and his workshop," and gradually replaced black-figure.; Related:Black-figure Attribute
Satyr play: A comic drama with a chorus of satyrs, the wild, dancing companions of Dionysus. Horace's Art of Poetry says the poet who first competed in tragedy for the prize of a goat soon brought wild satyrs on stage to amuse festival crowds, and Aristotle says tragedy left behind the grotesque diction of its earlier "satyric form" (Butcher translation).; Related:Tragedy Comedy Chorus
Syrinx: The panpipe, a row of reeds of different lengths bound with wax. Ovid tells how the nymph Syrinx, fleeing Pan, became marsh reeds, and how Pan joined "unequal reeds" with wax so the instrument kept her name (Riley translation).; Related:Metamorphoses Aulos
Terpsichore: The Muse later linked with choral song and dance, often shown in later art with a lyre. Diodorus Siculus tied her name, like Euterpe's, to terpein, to delight, and in Plato's Phaedrus the "grasshoppers" (Jowett's translation) win the love of Terpsichore for dancers by reporting on them to the Muses.; Related:Chorus Lyre Euterpe
Thalia: Also spelled Thaleia, the Muse later linked with comedy and idyllic poetry, shown in later art with a comic mask, a shepherd's staff, or a wreath of ivy. Diodorus Siculus tied her name to thallein, to flourish. She shares her name with one of the three Graces listed by Apollodorus, a different goddess.; Related:Comedy Melpomene
Thamyris: A singer who boasted he could beat the Muses in song. In Homer's Iliad the angry Muses "maimed him" and robbed him of his divine power of song (Butler translation); Apollodorus says they took both his eyes and his minstrelsy.; Related:Pierides Homer Library of Apollodorus
Theogony: An account of the origin and descent of the gods, and the title of Hesiod's poem on the subject. After a long hymn to the Muses, it tells how Chaos, Earth, and Heaven came to be, how Cronos overthrew Heaven, and how Zeus defeated the Titans to rule.; Related:Hesiod Chaos Titanomachy
Three Muses of Helicon: An older, smaller set of Muses: Melete (Practice), Mneme (Memory), and Aoede (Song). Pausanias reports that the first worshipers on Helicon recognized these three, and that Pierus of Macedonia later established nine Muses with the present names; Diodorus Siculus likewise notes that writers disagreed on whether there were three Muses or nine.; Related:Muse Mount Helicon Pierides
Titanomachy: The war between the Titans and the younger gods led by Zeus. In Hesiod's Theogony the Titans fight from Mount Othrys and the gods from Olympus "for ten full years" (Evelyn-White translation), until the hundred-armed Cottus, Briareos, and Gyes help bury the Titans beneath the earth in Tartarus; a lost epic called the War of the Titans also told the story.; Related:Titans Theogony Epic Cycle
Titans: In Hesiod, the twelve children of Earth and Heaven: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronos, the youngest. Hesiod says their father called them Titans, "Strainers," in reproach (Evelyn-White translation).; Related:Titanomachy Mnemosyne Prometheus
Tragedy: Serious drama, which Aristotle's Poetics defines as "an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude" that works "through pity and fear" to purge those emotions, the idea now called catharsis (Butcher translation). Aristotle says tragedy began with the authors of the dithyramb, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art traces its roots to the Athenian spring festival of Dionysos Eleuthereios.; Related:Melpomene Chorus Dithyramb
Urania: The Muse later linked with astronomy, shown in later art pointing a staff at a globe; Diodorus Siculus connected her name with ouranos, heaven. In Ovid's Metamorphoses she welcomes Pallas to Helicon, and Pausanias records a tradition that she was the mother of the musician Linus, a role Apollodorus gives to Calliope.; Related:Mount Helicon Calliope Metamorphoses