Sirens & Muses: A Novel

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Sometimes the Muses 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, also known as pegasides, were born. [17] [18] Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the Muses (compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae, the Völva of Norse Mythology and also the apsaras in the mythology of classical India).

However, the classical understanding of the Muses tripled their triad and established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance. It was not until Hellenistic times that the following systematic set of functions became associated with them, and even then some variation persisted both in their names and in their attributes: We must steer clear of the sirens, their enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers" is Robert Fagles's rendering of Odyssey 12.158–9.Sarcophagus with the contest between the Muses and the Sirens [Roman; in the Villa Nero, Rome]" (10.104) In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (February 2009) The Roman scholar Varro (116–27 BC) relates that there are only three Muses: one 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 called Melete or "Practice", Mneme or "Memory" and Aoide or "Song". [ citation needed] The Quaestiones Convivales of Plutarch (46–120 AD) also report three ancient Muses (9.I4.2–4). [8] [9]

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.*

We know of all the sorrows in the wide land […]; we know all things that come to pass on the fruitful earth.” Leonardo da Vinci wrote of them in his notebooks, stating "The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners." It is explained that the siren's "other part" may be "like fish or like bird" in Guillaume le clerc's Old French verse bestiary (1210 or 1211), [100] [95] as well as Philippe de Thaun's Anglo-Norman verse bestiary (c. 1121–1139). [101] [97] Derivative literature [ edit ] The sirens of Greek mythology first appeared in Homer's Odyssey, where Homer did not provide any physical descriptions, and their visual appearance was left to the readers' imagination. It was Apollonius of Rhodes in Argonautica (3rd century BC) who described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird. [b] [11] [12] By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds. [13] They may have been influenced by the ba-bird of Egyptian religion. In early Greek art, the sirens were generally represented as large birds with women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later depictions shifted to show sirens with human upper bodies and bird legs, with or without wings. They were often shown playing a variety of musical instruments, especially the lyre, kithara, and aulos. [14] The characters in Sirens & Muses wake up each day and choose chaos. . . . Angress’s strength is her ability to create an engrossing plot, allowing readers to watch as her messy characters navigate their way to the finish line.” — The New York Times Book Review