Calliope: Muse of Eloquence and Epic Poetry, holds a roll of parchment, or a trumpet.
Terpsichore: Muse of the Dance, presiding over choral, dance and song. She appears dancing with a seven-stringed lyre.
Urania: Muse of Astronomy, holds the globe and traces mathematical figures with a wand.
Melpomene: Muse of Tragedy (drama), leans on a club and holds a tragic mask.
Myths and Legends
The myths and legends of the ancient Greeks read like fairy tales, but to the Greeks they were what our Bible stories are to us. In their rich mythology we find many stories about the beginnings of music.
To Pan, the god of woods and fields, of flocks and shepherds, is given the credit of inventing the shepherd’s pipe, or Pan’s Pipes. He lived in grottoes, wandered on the mountains and in the valleys, and amused himself hunting, leading the dances of the nymphs, and playing on his pipes.
Pan’s Pipes
A beautiful nymph named Syrinx was loved by Pan, but every time that he tried to tell her of his love, she became frightened and ran away, for Pan was a funny looking lover with goat’s legs, a man’s body, and long pointed ears. One day he chased her through the woods to the bank of a river; she called out in fright, and was suddenly changed by her friends the Water Nymphs, into a clump of tall reeds. When he reached out to embrace her, instead of Syrinx, he had the clump of reeds in his arms! As he sighed in disappointment, his breath passing through the reeds, produced a sad wail. Pan, hearing in it a plaintive song, broke off the reeds in unequal lengths, bound them together, and made the first musical instrument, which he called a syrinx in memory of his lost sweetheart. These pipes comforted Pan, and he played many tender melodies, and often without being seen, was known to be near by his lovely music.
Pan, although adored, was feared. At one time, Brennus, a warrior, with a company of Gauls (a tribe from ancient France), attacked the Temple of Delphi (in Greece), and was about to destroy it, when suddenly they turned and fled in fear although no one pursued them. Their terror was supposed to have been of Pan’s making, and to this day we use the word “panic” (Pan-ic) for all sudden overpowering fright.