Both of Homer’s monumental works of poetry, The Iliad and The Odyssey, began by invoking the Muses.
Muses can be seen flanking Rome’s greatest literary figure, Virgil, in mosaic tributes to the master.
And it was to the shrines of Muses that no less than the philosophical likes of Socrates and Plato traveled to pay homage.
Such was the weighty cultural place occupied by the Greek (and later Roman) Muses. To these ephemeral beings, the greatest minds, poets, and artists of the classical world—hardly figures we’d associate with flights of fancy—turned, and turned often.
For the Muses—fully nine female goddesses in all—were no less than the bearers of creativity’s divine spark. They were the source of any and all bursts of originality, ranging from historical writing, music, and comedy to even geometry and astronomy. Every new height reached in the arts and sciences was a credit to these figures of grace, beauty, and talent. Fittingly, they often adorned Greek pottery, and festivals were held in their honor.
To the ancients, ideas didn’t simply bubble up from the unconscious (as in our post-Freudian world) or reflect the fruits of one’s own cognitive efforts. They traced back to a higher hand—divine, we might even say. Ideas were, if not actually handed to us, at least bestowed.
Though often characterized as “personifications” in this day and age (as if to herald them as holy would be somehow beneath our rational forebears), the Muses were, while not of the same flesh and blood as us, nevertheless very real—and consequential. Perhaps “angelic beings” or “heavenly figures” would be a more helpful nomenclature. They were said to be the daughters of Zeus, after all.
Whatever the terminology, reflecting upon the Muses and their cultural prominence in the ancient world provides a timely meditation on humility and our own place in the universe—particularly in these times of ever-growing hubris and denunciation of almost everything once sacred.
While today we attribute our talents and abilities to a mix of “nature” (which is increasingly understood as genetics) and nurture, or your own efforts and those of your family, for the Greco-Roman denizen, these were instead a blessing. They were something granted.
As such, one had to be worthy of these gifts. For the poet, this might mean, in addition to the study of his craft, also making a shrine to Calliope—the muse overseeing heroic poems and the art of rhetoric—and offering prayers. For someone choreographing a work of dance, one would turn to Terpsichore—the muse in charge of dance, often depicted with a harp in hand and a laurel wreath on her head.
A flash of creativity was, in this worldview, not so much one’s own achievement, but a privilege. From a higher, divine source did any inspiration flow.
There were even tales, though now seldom told, of just what consequences one might bring upon oneself should one forget this.
Most memorable for its horrific ending is the story of Thamyris. An accomplished singer from Thrace, Thamyris became so enamored with his own abilities that he boasted of being able to outsing even the Muses—whom he challenged to a contest.
As fate would have it, Thamyris lost and was to pay dearly for his impiety: the Muses proceeded to blind the singer and forever strip him of his musical and poetic abilities. His glorious career was snuffed out in but an instant. As the Muses giveth, the Muses taketh away.
The lesson of Thamyris would have been right at home in the Greek stock of mythological tales and theater, for so often the trigger of the tragic was none other than hubris—an excess of pride and confidence. Hubris was, in this worldview, essentially a forgetting of one’s indebtedness, an ingratitude to the higher help from which was born one’s inspiration and achievements.
Over the centuries, the Muses have all but faded from memory, as, perhaps, have their lessons.
But as we shall see in the next installment, they did take another life, or at least seem to have a counterpart, in the Christian centuries that followed the fall of Rome.
In the present, however, they mostly live on as references among the literary (Ray Bradbury once penned an essay on creativity titled, “How to Feed and Keep a Muse”) and marble figures lining the halls of palaces from times past.
Surprisingly, though, their former ubiquity is still hinted at in at least two words you and I use plenty often: music—which has long been associated with the Muses—and, less obvious, museum. The latter, in fact, originates from a Greek word that translates to something like “seat of the Muses.”
So, next time you find yourself reveling in the creative beauty on display at a portrait gallery, or just startled by the originality of an idea that comes upon you, pause for a moment to consider yourself blessed from above, rather than just awesome.
Who knows, it might just save your career.
