And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the goddesses said to me – the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis: "Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things.”
So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus, and they plucked and gave me a rod, a shoot of sturdy laurel, a marvellous thing, and breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things there were aforetime; and they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally, but ever to sing of themselves both first and last. (Hesiod, Theogeny)
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| Hesiod |
Sometime between the eighth and seventh
centuries B.C. the poet Hesiod created his Theogeny,
a work outlining the birth and genealogy of the Gods.
At the beginning of this epic poem, Hesiod
talks about how, as a shepherd, he was caring for his flock on the slopes of
Mt. Helicon, in the region of Boeotia. While there, Hesiod says that the Muses
came to him and inspired him to create the Theogeny,
a work that to this day provides the basis for ancient Greek religion.
Hesiod, before that, had not discovered his
artistic self. He was a shepherd, the son of a farmer.
And yet, while on the slopes of this sacred
mountain, the goddesses, the Muses, came to him and inspired him to bring forth
his great first work.
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| Mt. Helicon (1829) |
Hesiod does not say he invented the
contents of his work, or that he gathered existing tales from all over the
Hellenic world.
The Gods gave him that song to sing. They
inspired it in him, and he heard them.
We may scoff at this sort of thing today,
our modern, media-driven minds too dense and distracted to hear anything beyond
the ping of a mobile, but in the ancient world, and later ages of faith, the
greatest artists and creators were those that paid attention to divine
inspiration.
In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds,
creativity and artistic endeavour were the realm of the Nine Muses, the
daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, or ‘Memory’.
Tell
me, Muse, the story of that resourceful man who was driven to wander far and
wide after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy. He saw the cities of many
people and he learnt their ways. He suffered great anguish on the high seas in
his struggles to preserve his life and bring his comrades home. But he failed
to save those comrades, in spite of all his efforts. It was their own
transgression that brought them to their doom, for in their folly they devoured
the oxen of Hyperion the Sun-god and he saw to it that they would never return.
Tell us this story, goddess daughter of Zeus, beginning at whatever point you
will. (Homer, The
Odyssey)
I’ve just finished reading a book called The War of Art, by historical fiction
author, Steven Pressfield.
This is a wonderful book that every person
with a measure of artistic inkling should read and re-read. It is about doing
the things that you love and were meant to do without giving in to any excuses,
or ‘Resistance’, as Pressfield calls the artist’s enemy.
But Pressfield also reminded me of
something that I forget from time to time.
Creativity should never be taken for
granted. If you feel that there is something creative you want to do, or be, it
is your sacred duty to do or become that. When you feel those urges, you have
to fight ‘Resistance’ and rationalization with all of your might so that you
can bring those things you were meant to create to fruition.
Those urges are the Muses speaking to you,
telling you it’s time. If you ignore them, it’s to the detriment of your own
soul.
Because
when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to
happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitable and infallibly,
heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity
reinforces our purpose.
This
is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit
down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes
note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. (Steven Pressfield, The War
of Art)
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| Homer |
In ancient eyes, those who ignored the Gods
didn’t do too well.
Hesiod and Homer knew that it was their
duty to honour the Muses, they knew that they could not have created the works
that they did without the goddesses’ help. Hubris was not a good thing in the
ancient world.
But it was not just Hesiod and Homer who
called on these goddesses for help. Throughout history, some of the greatest
poets and other artists did so too.
Tell
me, Muse, the causes of her anger. How did he [Aeneas] violate the will of the
Queen of the Gods? What was his offence? Why did she drive a man famous for his
piety to such endless hardship and such suffering? Can there be so much anger
in the hearts of the heavenly gods? (Virgil, The Aeneid)
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| Praxiteles' Hermes and Dionysos |
The artist who called on the Muses for aid
and blessing was the one that was listening.
We know of writers and poets who have
called on the Muses in their work because they have been written down, but I
imagine that painters and sculptors would have done so too. What might
Praxiteles have done before he broke the surface of a piece of marble? Or
Michelangelo before he put his brush to the ceiling of the Cappella Sistina?
What went through Mozart’s head before the first heavenly notes of his Clarinet Concerto in A major came to him?
Before an ancient singer breathed those
first notes, or before the lyre player plucked that first string at the
Panathenaea or the Pythian Games, you can be sure that some inner prayer,
conscious or unconscious, was sent up to their own Muse.
You can also be sure that for the artist
whose heart was open to this, the Muses spoke back.
…and
I alone was there, Preparing to sustain war, as well Of the long way as also of
the pain, Which now unerring memory will tell. Oh Muses! O high Genius, now
sustain! O Memory who wrote down what I did see, Here thy nobility will be made
plain. (Dante, Inferno)
But who were the Muses? Early traditions
said there were three, but that eventually turned to nine, and that is the
number that has been given for ages. Their leader was Apollo, the God of Art,
Light and Prophecy, and in this particular capacity he was known as ‘Apollo
Mousagetes’, or ‘Apollo Muse-leader’.
Each one of these goddesses was responsible
for a particular art form, and so, individual artists may have called on
certain Muses. The names of these goddesses and their assigned art are as
follows:
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| Calliope – Epic Poetry |
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| Clio – History |
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| Erato – Lyric Poetry |
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| Euterpe – Song and Elegaic Poetry |
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| Melpomene – Tragedy |
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| Polyhymnia – Hymns |
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| Terpsichore – Dance |
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| Thalia – Comedy |
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| Urania – Astronomy |
I
will begin with the Muses and Apollo and Zeus. For it is through the Muses and
Apollo that there are singers upon the earth and players upon the lyre; but
kings are from Zeus. Happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet flows speech from
his lips. Hail, children of Zeus! Give honour to my song! And now I will remember
you and another song also. (Homeric Hymn to the
Muses and Apollo)
Some of the arts assigned to the Muses
might not seem like ‘art’ to us today – I’m thinking of Astronomy and History
in particular. However, to the ancients, this made perfect sense. Astronomy
involved philosophy and the understanding of the Heavens; it required great
imagination and thought.
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| Mnemosyne - 'Memory' by Rosetti |
And History? Well, to me that is ‘Mnemosyne’. History is the record of
human achievement in all areas, including art. History, poetry, and storytelling
go arm in arm.
It must have been a humbling experience for
ancient artists to know that the Muses were looking over their shoulders as
they carried out the work they were inspired to do.
It must also have been a wonder-full experience
to feel that, to know that you were not alone.
My hope is that we have not totally lost
this today – artists, writers, athletes, inventors, creators of all kinds will
find themselves in what we call ‘The Zone’. Many will thank ‘God’ for their successes,
they will be exhilarated after a good session.
As a writer, I know that when I sit down
and have a fantastic writing time, even after the worst of days, there must be
something more at work. I feel like I’ve had help that day. I feel like I have
done justice to the art that I love.
If you are a creator of something,
anything, it behoves you to acknowledge the help that you have had, especially
if that help is Heaven-sent.
O for
a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom
for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! (William Shakespeare, Henry V)
