The Ancient Greek Titans came BEFORE the gods of Mt. Olympus. The Titan Uranus (Heaven) married Gaia (Earth) and they had a daughter Mnemosyne (Memory). She had 9 daughters by Zeus, the King of the ancient gods. Each daughter presided or ruled over a specific art form. Their daughters were Calliope, the chief of all 9; she was loud, eloquent and the goddess of epic poetry. At circuses and fairs there was a large steam organ, a calliope, named for her. Next was Clio, for history. There is an award named for her in advertising, design and communication. Then Erato, for lyrical poetry, song, and love poetry; many things are named for her. Euterpe follows, the goddess of music, especially the flute, and other wind instruments. Melpomene is known for tragedy and the Greek god Apollo is associated with her. He was the leader and supervisor of the Muses, they were his attendants, sort of his “groupies”. There is a famous 1540 painting by Guilio Romano depicting this scene. Apollo was the god of the sun, music, light, prophecy, healing, and poetry. MANY things are named for him, including the NASA space program to land astronauts on the moon. BTW, astronaut is a Greek word meaning “star sailor”. There is a famous theater in Harlem, asteroids, certain animals, many cities, etc. bearing Apollo’s name. The sixth sister is Polyhymnia, of sacred poetry and hymns. There is an international recording center in Holland named for her. She is also associated with geometry, meditation and agriculture. Thalia is the seventh sister, the goddess of playful poetry and comedy, there is a magazine named for her, an actor’s award, and is a popular girl’s name today. Terpsichore is dance, and some dance studios call the dancers terpsichoreans, or “terps.” Urania is the ninth sister, goddess of astronomy (“law of the stars” in Greek.) The planet Uranus is named for her, as are many observatories around the world.
All of these beautiful ladies were ‘in charge of’ literature, the arts and science. A muse is person who serves as someone’s source of artistic expression, a guiding spirit and source of inspiration. They have been around since the 8th century B.C., and they are still talked about in our lifetime, in all forms of art and literature. Muses are NOT angels! An angel is a spiritual Being, a messenger between God and humans.
The songwriter and novelist Nick Cave said “Most people wait for the muse to show up. That’s terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.” The American author and screenwriter Ray Bradbury said “To feed your muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. “He also said “I am not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.”
In New Orleans in 1810, a city planner, Barthelemy Lafon, designed a neighborhood in the garden district, with 9 streets, all named for the Greek muses. In those days, ancient Greece was in style, and the street names were pronounced just like the Greek. Today they are “cajun-ized” and sound very different. I stayed at a friend’s home on Euterpe many years ago, it was locally called ‘YOU- terp,’ when in Greek it is ‘Ev-TER-peh.’
Muse can be a noun and a verb. To muse is to be absorbed in one’s thoughts, to be engaged in meditation, to consider or say thoughtfully. The noun is a mythological person, usually a woman, who serves a guiding spirit and a source of inspiration. Each Muse presided over a specific realm in the arts and sciences. The word museum came from ancient Greek (mouseion) and meant Temple of the Muses, makes sense! Museum now means a place to study. The famous 9 Greek muses have been around for almost 3,000 years, and are still around. The myths which created them were stories told orally for centuries.
Jesus Christ was born 800 years after the muses were ‘imagined’ and we know He was real. Remember a god or goddess (little g) is a figment of someone’s imagination. Unless they were really human?? Like Hercules, was he a myth or a human? Helen of Troy was a real person. God or GOD (big G, and/or all caps is THE REAL GOD, even though we cannot see Him. Jesus was the Son of God, and came to earth to teach us about our Heavenly Father. My 1992 American Heritage 2140-page dictionary states that God is a Being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic (Greek for one God) religions, just in case you did not know…. or have a personal RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM!
As for my handsome Greek husband. my Dad always said: “when Carol married him, she thought he was a Greek god; but when she divorced him, she thought he was a g*****n Greek”.
Carol Veliotis is a local columnist for The Covington News. She can be reached at carol.veliotis@gmail.com.
