The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy

MUSES. 187
Parnassos, Helicon, the founts Hippocrene, Aganippe, Leibe-
thron, Castalia, and the Corycian cave.
The Muses, says Homer a , met the Thracian Thamyras in
Dorion (in the Peloponnese), as he was returning from CEcha-
lia. He had boasted that he could excel them in singing
and enraged at his presumption they struck him blind, and
deprived him of his knowledge of music.
Shortly after the birth of the Muses, the nine daughters, it
is said, of Pierios king of iEmathia challenged them to a contest
of singing. The place of trial was Mount Helicon. At
the song of the latter the sky became dark and all nature
was put out of harmony, but at that of the Muses the heaven
itself, the stars, the sea, and rivers stood motionless, and Helicon
swelled up with delight, so that his summit would have
reached the sky had not Poseidon directed Pegasos to strike
it with his hoof. The Muses then turned the presumptuous
maids into nine different kinds of birds b .
The Muses did not escape the darts of Love. Calliope
bore to CEagros a son named Linos c , who was killed by his
pupil Heracles. She also had by the same sire Orpheus,
whose skill on the lyre was such as to move the very trees
and rocks, and the beasts of the forest assembled round him
as he struck its chords. He was married to Eurydice d , whom
he tenderly loved ; but a snake having bitten her as she ran
through the grass, she died. Her disconsolate husband de-
termined to descend to the under-world, to endeavour to mol-
lify its rulers, and obtain permission for her to return to the
realms of light. Hades and Persephone listened to his prayer
she was allowed to return, on condition of his not looking on
her till they were arrived in the upper-world. Fearing that
she might not be following him, the anxious husband looked
3 II. ii. 594.
b Nicander ap. Anton. Lib. 9. where the names of the birds are given ; these
of course were the names of the nine maids in Nicander. Ovid, who also relates
the legend (Met. v. 300. seq.), says they were turned into magpies, and he is fol-
lowed by Statius (Sdv. ii. 4. 19.). The tale seems indebted for its origin to the
Muses' name, Pierides, from Pieria.
c Apollod. i. 3. 2. Others made Apollo the sire of Linos and Orpheus. Hesiod
(Fr. 97.) said that Urania was the mother of Linos. See Conon 19.
A Argiope according to Hermesianax.
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