#WingedWordsWindsday: 03/30/2022 -- The Nine Muses, Plus One

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 22: March 30, 2022

 

 

Celebrating Women’s History Month

Episode #5: The Nine Muses, Plus One

 

Excerpt from The Age of Fable (Chapter 1) by Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)

                The Muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory). They presided over song, and prompted the memory. They were nine in number, to each of whom was assigned the presidence over some particular department of literature, art, or science. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of choral dance and song, Erato of love poetry, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of astronomy, Thalia of comedy.

 

Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon (1680) by Claude Lorrain. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Orphic Hymn #75: “To the Muses”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

Daughters of Jove, dire-sounding and divine,

Renowned Pierian, sweetly speaking Nine;

To those whose breasts your sacred furies fire

Much-formed, the objects of supreme desire:

Sources of blameless virtue to mankind,

Who form to excellence the youthful mind;

Who nurse the soul, and give her to descry

The paths of right with Reason's steady eye.

Commanding queens who lead to sacred light

The intellect refined from Error's night;

And to mankind each holy rite disclose,

For mystic knowledge from your nature flows.

Clio, and Erato, who charms the sight,

With thee Euterpe ministering delight:

Thalia flourishing, Polyhymnia famed,

Melpomene from skill in music named:

Terpischore, Urania heavenly bright,

With thee who gavest me to behold the light.

Come, venerable, various, powers divine,

With favoring aspect on your mystics shine;

Bring glorious, ardent, lovely, famed desire,

And warm my bosom with your sacred fire.

 

Proclus (410-485 CE): “Hymn to the Muses”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

A sacred light I sing, which leads on high

Jove's nine famed daughters, ruler of the sky,

Whose splendors beaming o'er this sea of life,

On souls hard struggling with its storms of strife,

Through mystic rites perfective and refined,

(From books which stimulate the sluggish mind)

From Earth's dire evils leads them to that shore,

Where grief and labor can infest no more;

And well instructs them how, with ardent wing,

From Lethe's deep, wide-spreading flood to spring,

And how once more their kindred stars to gain,

And ancient seats in truth's immortal plain,

From whence they wandering fell, through mad desire

Of matter's regions and allotments dire.

In me this rage repress, illustrious Nine!

And fill my mental eye with light divine.

Oh may the doctrines of the wise inspire

My soul with sacred Bacchanalian fire,

Lest men, with filthy piety replete,

From paths of beauteous light divert my feet.

Conduct my erring soul to sacred light,

From wandering generation's stormy night:

Wise through your volumes hence, the task be mine,

To sing in praise of eloquence divine,

Whose soothing power can charm the troubled soul,

And throbbing anguish and despair control.

Hear, splendid goddesses, of bounteous mind,

To whom the helm of wisdom is assigned,

And who the soul with all-attractive flame

Lead to the blest immortals whence she came,

From night profound enabling her to rise,

Forsake dull Earth, and gain her native skies,

And with unclouded splendor fill the mind,

By rites ineffable of hymns refined.

Hear, mighty saviors! and with holy light,

While reading works divine illume my sight,

And dissipate these mists, that I may learn

Immortal gods from mortals to discern;

Lest, plunged in drowsy Lethe's black abyss,

Some baneful daemon keep my soul from bliss;

And lest deep merged in Hyle's stormy mire,

Her powers reluctant suffer tortures dire,

And some chill Fury with her freezing chain,

In lingering lethargy my life detain.

All-radiant governors of wisdom's light,

To me now hastening from the realms of night,

And ardent panting for the coast of day,

Through sacred rites benignant point the way,

And mystic knowledge of my view disclose,

 

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672): “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America”

                The first published poet in British North America was Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), a learned resident of Massachusetts whose poetry earned her the nickname of “The Tenth Muse.” Her poems cover a wide range of subjects, such as everyday life in Colonial New England, history, biography, and science. Here is an example of her scientific poetry, a didactic piece on the four elements of ancient Greek science – earth, water, air, and fire.

 

A depiction of Anne Bradstreet from 1898 by Edmund H. Garrett. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“The Four Elements”

By Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

The Fire, Air, Earth and water did contest

Which was the strongest, noblest and the best,

Who was of greatest use and might'est force;

In placide Terms they thought now to discourse,

That in due order each her turn should speak;

But enmity this amity did break

All would be chief, and all scorn'd to be under

Whence issu'd winds & rains, lightning & thunder

The quaking earth did groan, the Sky lookt black

The Fire, the forced Air, in sunder crack;

The sea did threat the heav'ns, the heavn's the earth,

All looked like a Chaos or new birth:

Fire broyled Earth, & scorched Earth it choaked

Both by their darings, water so provoked

That roaring in it came, and with its source

Soon made the Combatants abate their force

The rumbling hissing, puffing was so great

The worlds confusion, it did seem to threat

Till gentle Air, Contention so abated

That betwixt hot and cold, she arbitrated

The others difference, being less did cease

All storms now laid, and they in perfect peace

That Fire should first begin, the rest consent,

The noblest and most active Element.