A Tidbit about The Muses and Inspiration

While working on "The Tools Of Poetry Workshop" tonight I stumbled across a small snippet of extra interest:

"The muses, the Greek inspirers of the creative arts, were the daughters of Memory, or Mnemosyne."1

Ok, so I'm sure some of you already knew that the translation of Mnemosyne was Memory but I didn't and so I found it intriguing to put two and two together to determine the truth that all inspiration comes from memory. If anyone knows, I'd love to know what the daughters names translate to.

I've always believed that inspiration was self-empowered and that goes to show that it can never be lacking. Motivation may be but inspiration is everywhere, it's in the mind and in the eye. All we see and do and feel is stored in our memory and it is from our memory that inspiration, the muses, are born.

Oh well. I thought it was an interesting insight and wanted to share. If it weren't already gone midnight I'd go look up the names of the daughters of Mnemosyne and discover if their literal name translations have deeper meanings also.

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Of course, turn a page or two and it's right there. The names of the muses and a distinction of sorts:

Calliope (epic poetry)
Clio (history)
Erato (love poetry)
Euterpe (lyric poetry)
Melpomene (tragedy)
Polyhymnia (songs to the gods)
Terpsichore (dance)
Thalia (comedy)
Urania (astronomy)


Footnotes
1 "The Poetry Dictionary" by John Drury
First Edition, Page 158: Memory