home

Close

THE 9 MUSES  and the 9 MUSEUMS of WORDS (stored information) ORACLE

The 9 MUSES in fact where 9 MUSEUMS of words (libraries? also called ΜΑΝΤΕΙΑ(=ORACLE). World wide information kept  in safety to recall them when needed.
Greek historian Hesiod lines 38-40: «είρουσαι τά τ' εόντα τά τ' εσσόμενα πρό τ' εόντα, φωνή ομηρεύσαι τών δ' ακάματος ρέει αυδή εκ στομάτων ηδεία...». (=people seeking information from the muses, the information was read to the people exactly as it was written, with the only difference that the muses had to create poems and sing it to their clients because the majority of the people where illiterate, and it is easier to remember a song than the actual words,  the word ομηρεύσαι (=captured, kept, stored) indicating that the words where written and stored in safety.

MUSEUM  ΚΛΕΙΩ (=CLEIO - Muse of history) from the word κλείω (=closing - locking) forbidding intruders  to historical records of a state. In this museum were kept information of the past, the present, and to predict with statistics the future, in her statue is attached a codex and in one hand holding a trumpet to hum the famous events, and in the other a hourglass to sing out the past of historical events.  

MUSEUM  ΕΥΤΕΡΠΗ (=EUTERPE)
EY=EU(=good, happy, enjoy) ΤΕΡΠΗ(= pleasurable, satisfied)
The happy muse related with teaching music, dancing, wine making, and she is close related with Bacchus (=Dionysus)
her music is the bag-pipes, double-pipes, and the flute.

She kept information of all kinds of traditional music of her known world.
 

MUSEUM ΜΕΛΠΟΜΕΝΗ (=MELPOMENE) ΜΕΛ=MEL=melodrama (acting), ΠΟ=πόσις PO=posis (=wine drinking)  «Greek tragedy» the word tragedy is related to ancient times, τράγος (=tragos the male goat (billy-goat), (trag+odi= τραγ+ωδί=acting and sinning). Goat herdsmen  of the Greek mountains often under wine influence, dress with goat skins to perform and amuse them selves acting as male goats with at first unpleasant comic sexual behavior, the idea led to gradual evolution of a proper musical - theatrical  prototype.
The muse is pictured in an acting position, standing holding Hercules club, and she wears a mask of him. Museum MELPOMENE was teaching theater, enriching heroism to the young and high spirit to others

MUSEUM ΤΕΡΨΙΧΟΡΗ (=TERPSICHORE) TERPSI= pleasure, satisfaction, happiness CHORE=chorus, sing and dance, she is always following MELPOMENE in the theatre.
She teaches music and dance.

the lyre (guitar) symbol of divination to God Apollo.

MUSEUM ΠΟΛΥΜΝΙΑ (=POLYMNIA) POLY=the greatness of a substance, YMNIA emerges from the word ΥΦ-ΥΦΑΙΝΩ(=weave) weaving words and writings of information as well in tapestry.
In Homer (Ιλιάς Ζ 169-170) we read «Γράψας (Γράψας=he wrote - writes) εν πινάκι πτυκτώ θυμοφθόρα πολλά» [he wrote fearfully events on  double wooden plaques and he folded them].
Museum Polymnia was a work place of weaving writings and storing the information.
Polymnia portrayed with her finger-pointer in front of her mouth symbolizing silence.

MUSEUM  ΚΑΛΛΙΟΠΗ (=CALLIOPE)  KALLI (=good, right, brilliant, etc., OPE=open eye, broad vision.
The many languages of Greece  Achaea, Crete, Dorea, Cydon, Pelasgia originating from Zeus era  causing confusion. The museum CALLIOPE considered as the greatest offer, sorting out the many words of the seamen to be understood by the people of the mountains and vice versa and in all regions and trades, and to create a common dictionary.  ΓΛΩΣΣΑ(=GLOSSA=toque=language=knowledge) the knowledge of many words to rise the level of civilization. CALLIOPE portrayed seated in a thinking position her elbow resting on her knee, holding pen feather and plaques, her appearance showed that she was ready to read those plaques.  (the Greek writing is as old since the appearance of Zeus more than 15.000 years old,  long before the appearance of the Phoenicians).

MUSEUM  ΘΑΛΕΙΑ (=THALEIA) ΘΑ=ΤΗΑ= oversee, attend, observe sea and land weather conditions.
She was teaching people fishing, stock breeding, agriculture and the technique of managing seedlings and nursing plants. She also advising seamen to understand weather conditions and to observe the constellation of Pleiades and the Star Orion, Sirius, and Ursa Major. She was teaching the preparation of works to be done on the changing of the seasons [when the stars Orion and Sirius reach the centre of the sky, and the  Ursa Major facing the morning star it is time to vine harvest and bring all the grapes home. (Hesiod Έργα και ημέρες lines 609-611)]. 
Her appearance with garland of vine, dressed in kirtle holding in one hand Dionysus mask and a teaching-stick  in the other. 

MUSEUM ΕΡΑΤΩ (=ERATO) EROS=The union of  male and female. Teaching morality and bashfulness  to young women and the obligations towards marriage.
Wedding is an old Greek tradition introducing the ceremony with the gathering of people to witness, the Greek invention of the white wedding dress symbolized the purity of the bride.
According to Athenian law, allowed the marriage of one man one woman for raising  children.

ERATO pictured naked (symbol of fertility) holding a lyre.

MUSEUM  ΟΥΡΑΝΙΑ (=OURANIA) (=URANUS=SKY) In Theogony=Greek Genesis «historian Hesiod (800-750 b.c.) conceded that the information of Theogony came from the muses of the Heliconian  mountains  (Oracle)». (At first there was Chaos after the Erebus and the night next the daylight next the sky the Earth and Eros).... «THEOGONY is a  mythological code of facts but not a religion, the pre-philosophic and pre-scientific progress of the Paleolithic Greeks» At the beginning existed the CHAOS, GAEA (=matter) and EROS (attractiveness=gravity), from Chaos begat Erebus and the Night and from those two begat the Ether (a substance permitting light to travel) and the day-light. At the same time begets the Gaea (Earth) including the Uranus (=sky+stars), and from those two begets the Ocean, Coeus, Creaeus, Hyperion (=Galaxy), Iapetus, and Cronus including the Cyclopes Brontes, Steropes, and Arges (the TITANS). Thaea, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne (=memory), Phoebe, Tethys (the TITANESS).

home

Close