Guess that’s what a degree in library tech or something from an obscure Canadian college will get you: a complete disregard for honest research. Rather than musing on the word “muse,” you could have simply looked it up – as I’m sure your sainted mother would have advised you to do had you been living at home and being annoying on the eve of a great Tupperware party (“You can either look it up or make yourself useful by stamping these flyers, young lady”).
So I’ve taken it upon myself to get the information that you need. Me. With my lowly sociology degree. The major that you refer to as “what one does when one cannot choose a major.” Please read carefully and digest it all. There will be a test.
The Muses are the Greek goddesses who preside over the arts and sciences and inspire those who excel at these pursuits, such as sociology majors and tubists. Daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne (“memory”), they were born at Pieria at the foot of Mount Olympus. Their nurse, Eupheme, raised them along with her son, Crotus the hunter, who was transported into the sky as Sagittarius upon his death. Their name (akin to the Latin mens and English mind) denotes ‘memory’ or ‘a reminder’, since in the earliet times poets, having no books to read from, and no library sciences majors to ask questions of, relied on their memories. The Romans identified the Muses with certain obscure Italian water-goddesses, the Camenae (from the Greek “Cam,” meaning “part of an engine” and “enae,” a Scottish brogueism for “enough” – as in “Thot’ll bae enae o thot, ye youngue camenae!”)
The original number of muses and their names varies in earlier times as their evolution blossomed in Greek mythology. At first, three muses were worshipped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Melete (“meditation”), Mneme (“memory”), and Aoede (“Melete and Mneme’s Sister”). Another three were worshipped at Delphi and their names represented the names of the strings of a lyre: Nete, Mese, and Hypate. Several other versions were worshipped until the Greeks finally established the seventeen muses in mythology as: Calliope, Doc, Clio, Erato, Bashful, Euterpe, Dopey, Sneezy, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Happy, Sleepy, Terpsichore, Grumpy, Thalia, Urania, and Stumpy. The Muses had several epithets which usually referred to places where they had settled.
Ephialtes and Otus, who also founded Ascra, were the first to sacrifice on Helicon to the Muses and to call the mountain sacred to the Muses. Sacrifices to the Muses consisted of libations of water, milk, or honey poured out of a plastic jug shaped like a dancing honey bear.
Their companions are the Charities, the Horae, Eros, Dionysus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Harmonia, and Himerus (Desire). Apollo is the leader of the choir of the Muses and consequently he has the surname Musagetes. Later Greeks consistenly referred to him as Mr. Musagete. Over the centuries, this was bastardized by English tourists and finally made famous by Andrew Lloyd Weber’s smash hit, “Mr. Mestopholis.” Athena caught and tamed the winged horse Pegasus and gave him to the Muses. Some of their disciples included the Sphinx who learned her riddle from the Muses; Aristaeus, who learned the arts of healing and prophecy from them, and Echo, who was taught by them to play music – over and over and over and over.
Source: Some website that came up first on Google.
