Musing on the Muses
If you’re a fan of Disney’s Hercules, you’ve seen these five women in action. They are the Muses, a collection of goddesses of the arts. The daughters of Greek God, Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne, there were originally nine of them, each embodying a different aspect of the creative arts. Calliope (Epic Poetry), Clio (History), Euterpe (Flutes and Lyric Poetry), Thalia (Comedy), Melopmene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyphymnia (sacred poetry) and Urania (astronomy) all inspired the creation of art through their own songs, dances, writing, music, and mime. They were invoked at the start of epic poems and tales like The Illiad or The Odyssey to have the storyteller exist a vessel that the muses could work through to successfully tell the tales of these heroes.