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The Muses ( ''Mousai''; perhaps from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root *''men-'' "think")〔From which ''mind'' and ''mental'' are also derived; see ''Oxford English Dictionary''.〕 in Greek mythology are the goddesses of the inspiration of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, song-lyrics, and myths that were related orally for centuries in these ancient cultures. They were later adopted by the Romans as a part of their pantheon. In current English usage, "''muse''" can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, writer, or musician.〔"(muse )". The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved February 15, 2009.〕 Political allusions to the influential roles that the muse plays (within the political sphere ) has also been referenced in current American literature. == Origins == The earliest known records of the Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Muses were of Thracian origin.〔(''The Growth of Literature'' by H. Munro Chadwick, Nora K. Chadwick )〕 There, a tradition persisted〔Reported to Pausanias in the second century AD (noted in Karl Kerenyi, ''The Gods of the Greeks'', 1951, p.104 and note 284. Kerenyi offers the suggestion, from Hesiod's own practice, that their names had been ''Melete'', "practicing", ''Mneme'', "remembering", and ''Aoide'', "singing".〕 that the Muses had once been three in number. Diodorus Siculus quotes Hesiod to the contrary, observing: Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses; for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them.〔Diodorus Siculus, 4.7.1–2 ((on-line text ))〕 Diodorus also states (Book I.18) that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the Satyrs or male dancers, while passing through Ethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went. The Muses, the personification of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, are the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory personified). Hesiod's account and description of the Muses was the one generally followed by the writers of antiquity. It was not until Roman times that the following functions were assigned to them, and even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Urania (astronomy). Three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarch's ''Quaestiones Convivales''〔:it:Plutarco〕 (9.I4.2–4).〔Diodorus, Plutarch and Pausanias are all noted by Susan Scheinberg, in reporting other Hellenic maiden triads, in "The Bee Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes" ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', 83 (1979:1–28) p. 2.〕 The Roman scholar Varro relates that there are only three Muses: one who is born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice. They were Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory and Aoide or Song. However the Classical understanding of the muses tripled their triad, set at nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. In one myth, King Pierus, king of Macedon, had nine daughters he named after the nine Muses, believing that their skills were a great match to the Muses. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, the ''Pierides'', being turned into chattering magpies〔Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 5.677–78: "Now their previous eloquence also remained in the birds, as well as their strident chattering and their great zeal for speaking." See also Antoninus Liberalis 9.〕 for their presumption. Sometimes they are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris. It was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the muses were born.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Elysium Gates - Historical Pegasus )〕 Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the muses. Antiquity set Apollo as their leader, ''Apollon Mousagetēs'' ("Apollo Muse-leader").〔For example, Plato, ''Laws'' 653d.〕 Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an artistic inspiration, as when one cites one's own artistic muse, but they also are implicit in words and phrases such as "a''muse''", "''muse''um" (Latinised from mouseion—a place where the muses were worshipped), "''mus''ic", and "''mus''ing upon".〔''OED'' derives "''amuse"'' from French ''a'' ("from") and ''muser'', "to stare stupidly" or distractedly.〕 According to Hesiod's ''Theogony'' (7th century BC), they were daughters of Zeus, the second generation king of the gods, and the offspring of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the early deities, Uranus and Gaia. Gaia is Mother Earth, an early mother goddess who was worshipped at Delphi from prehistoric times, long before the site was rededicated to Apollo, possibly indicating a transfer to association with him after that time. Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses; the first are the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia (the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares), which contradicts the myth in which they were dancing at the wedding of Harmonia and Cadmus. Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae, the Völva of Norse Mythology and also the apsaras in the mythology of classical India. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「muse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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