In search of the evasive muse

Some time ago on a night when I was having a glass of wine or two and surfing the net and feeling a bit lonely, I put an ad up on a meeting site saying I was seeking a muse. I thought I might meet someone interesting. I received a few responses but not very many. After all how many people on one of those sites want to talk with a 72-year-old man? The thing of it was, not one of them even mentioned "muse." I traded a few emails with a couple of them but it never went any further than that.

More recently I was chatting with a friend and mentioned the search that night. She asked me which of the nine of them I was looking for and suggested next time (like there is ever going to be a next time) I say which of the nine muses I am seeking. First of all, there are nine of them? I really need to look things up more often. I had the idea of muse correct, but not the specifics. It turns out there are nine of them. They are listed in the piece below that I lifted from infoplease. 

The Nine Muses

The Nine Muses were Greek goddesses who ruled over the arts and sciences and offered inspiration in those subjects. They were the daughters of Zeus, lord of all gods, and Mnemosyne, who represented memory. Memory was important for the Muses because in ancient times, when there were no books, poets had to carry their work in their memories.

Copied from Infoplease.

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.

So, those are the nine. Now here is a broader definition of them from The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines by my friend Patricia Monaghan:

Musae  Daughters of Mnemosyne, the Muses were born near Mount

Olympus in a place they later made a danc­ing ground.  There they were raised by the hunter Crotus, who was transported after death into the sky as Sagittarius.  Usually there were nine Musae: Clio, ruler of history, depicted with an open scroll or a chest of books; Euterpe, the flute‑playing lyric Muse; festive Thalia who wore the comic mask and wreaths of ivy; Melpomene, who wore vine leaves and the mask of tragedy; Terpsichore, who carried a lyre and ruled choral song as well as dance; Erato, ruler of erotic poetry and nurse of Pan; Polyhymnia, whose name means “many hymns” and who inspired them; Urania, globe‑bearing Muse of astronomy; and Calliope, ruler of epic poetry, shown with tablet and pencil.

Sometimes there were fewer than nine Musae.  Three were symbolic: Melete (“practicing”), Mneme (“remembering”), and Aoide (“singing”).  When there was only one Muse, she could be called by any of the names of the nine.  The group had many alternative names, derived from places sa­cred to them.  They were called Cas­talides for a spring called Castilia on Mount Parnassus; a minor goddess lived there and endowed people with inspiration, from which Parnassus remains a symbol of achievement in the arts.  (Apollonius of Rhodes; Athanassakis; Farnell; Hesiod; Ovid Met.)

The upshot of it all is that there isn't one muse who covers it all as far as writing is concerned. There are three who cover varieties of poetry; one for history; one for comedy; and one for drama, but none for the Great American Novel, or the Greek version either for that matter.

So what is the frustrated fiction writer to do? Go on without a muse? Apparently there is no other way, leaving the writer where he is supposed to be anyway, alone in a room with only his own thoughts and a blank screen and not even a mythological goddess to help out. But they did have an effect. Patricia Monaghan and I used to communicate often and one of the subjects we discussed more than once was procrastination. And, here she is, almost two years after her death, still contributing to my procrastinating as I look through her book for an answer that has nothing to do with the writing I am supposed to be doing. And then as much as we encouraged each other I wonder if unconsciously I am attempting to connect with a woman who at one time served as a muse in this writer's life or at least was a writer whom I admired and whose criticism and encouragement meant a great deal and who is no longer available.

And so we plod on alone callously accepting no excuse for the inertia perhaps now understanding there are nine of them out there avoiding contact, but in a way providing an ethereal connection with a previous inspiration.

Another conversation with Patricia

The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines
infoplease