Musa, one of the nine muses24cm Full length alabaster statue, ancient Greece

In ancient Greek

Religion and mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture. In modern figurative usage, a Muse may be a source of artistic inspiration. They were daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, Titan goddess of memory. Hesiod in Theogony narrates that the Muses brought to people forgetfulness, that is, the forgetfulness of pain and the cessation of obligations. The classical understanding of the Muses established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance. It was not until Hellenistic times that the following systematic set of functions became associated with them, and even then, some variation persisted both in their names and in their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and music), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry and lyric poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry) and Urania (astronomy).

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