Artistic Inspiration

The Source of Artistic Inspiration
By Abhinabha Tangerman

(from "An Ode to Music" by James G. Percival)

She is capricious, fickle, hard to please. She lets you wait for her in desparation for many long hours - and decides not to come. Then the next day she suddenly comes, unexpected, unannounced. Queen of arbitrary appearances, mistress of magical moments, empress of eloquence, embodied by the unseen, subtle thought-wave tickling the brain, instilling in the subtle sense a heightened awareness of the divine reality. She is inspiration. She is the Muse.

If we look her up in a dictionary or an encyclopaedia we come to learn that there were originally nine muses, representing the nine goddesses of arts and science. None other than Zeus was their father. He graced them with melodious names, fitting to their high positions: Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania. A temple erected in their honour was called a 'Mouseion', a name we now give to the venue where the fruits of their inspiration can be found: the museum.

It was not wise to contend with these high-learned gals, as the daughters of king Pierus found out when they entered into a singing competition with the muses and were badly defeated. The muses were not satisfied with victory alone, for legend has it they changed the nine princesses into magpies. The Sirens - mythological creatures with the body of a bird and the head of a woman - whose enchanting and spellbinding songs issued from their rock in the sea sent many a sailor to an early sea-grave, also tried their luck and pitted their musical skill against that of the muses. The Sirens suffered not only defeat, but also the loss of their feathers, as the muses plucked them out to make crowns out of.