The Incessant Muses

The Sacred Grove, Beloved of the Arts and the Muses, 1884–89
Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes French, 1824-1898

This painting, The Sacred Grove, resides in the Chicago Museum of Art.  I saw it there last year, and spent some time trying to identify the nine Muses.  I didn't have enough information at the time, but here they are before us:

Calliope was the muse of epic poetry.
Clio was the muse of history.
Erato was the muse of love poetry.
Euterpe was the muse of music.
Melpomene was the muse of tragedy.
Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry.
Terpsichore was the muse of dance.
Thalia was the muse of comedy.
Urania was the muse of astronomy.

According to The Free Dictionary, a Muse is "a guiding spirit" or "a source of inspiration". Poets from Shakespeare to Milton have called upon their Muses to inspire them to lofty and meaningful creative action.  The Muses were the personification of knowledge and the arts.

Who would dare to be guided and inspired by the Muses?  Of course, they are not real, these Greek spirits with their white robes and detached and aloof ways. They could not hover about us while we think, or write, or draw, or contemplate, or dance, or hope, or love.  For they do not exist, not in reality, not in this physical world, not in any measurable way.

But the Muses were never said to be physical beings anyway.  If anyone might secretly believe them to exist in his mind, to move and influence him, to inflame his being and excite his passions, what proof could be offered to convince him otherwise?  The collective thoughts and feelings of generations past reside hidden in his mental processes, and if he believes that among them the Muses dance and sing and play -- well, perhaps he should not share this with anyone.

The theory of the Muses does not mesh with the world of cars and cash and widescreen television sets that everyone knows exists in unavoidable reality.  The Muses could never compete or adequately compensate -- even if they did exist. How could poetry or music or dance enrich conversations filled with sardonic humor, or dreams already replete with avarice, or the soul that "knows no release from little things".  Such knowledge and art are too much for daily living.  Who among us could hear this incessant drone of the calling Muses when the real world has us in its hold?