Muse. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts.
They are considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in these ancient cultures. In current English usage, muse can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, musician, or writer.
The earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin.
There, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number. In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus cited Homer and Hesiod to the contrary, observing: Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses; for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them.
Diodorus states that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the satyrs, while passing through Aethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went. According to Hesiod's account, generally followed by the writers of antiquity, the Nine Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, figuring as personifications of know
They are considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in these ancient cultures. In current English usage, muse can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, musician, or writer.
The earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin.
There, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number. In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus cited Homer and Hesiod to the contrary, observing: Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses; for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them.
Diodorus states that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the satyrs, while passing through Aethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went. According to Hesiod's account, generally followed by the writers of antiquity, the Nine Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, figuring as personifications of know
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