Calliope, a Muse Apart: Some Remarks on the Tradition of Memory as a Vehicle of Oral Justice

The relation of the Muses in ancient Greece, especially during the archaic and the beginning of the classical period with which this paper is concerned, to the notion of memory is apparent first by their very name: the word mousa can be related to the verb mimnêskô ("remind," "bring, put in mind").¹ Around the seventh century B.C.E., in his poem entitled Theogony, Hesiod commemorates the birth of the Muses and identifies them as the daughters of the goddess Mnemosyne and Zeus (lines 53-65). Indeed, Memory is well known as the mother of the Muses. According to a passage in Plutarch, the Muses were also called Mneiai (Memories) in some places.² And Pausanias tells us that the Muses were three in number and had the names of Meletê (Practice), Mnêmê (Memory) and Aoidê (Song).³ Each one, in other words, bore the name of an essential aspect of poetical function. As rhythmical song, the Muse is inseparable from poetic Memory and is necessary for the poet's inspiration as well as for his oral composition. From the perspective of our present argument, it is significant that Memory and the Muses are also closely connected with the notion of persuasion.⁴

The Proem of Hesiod's Theogony

Hesiod begins his Theogony with a "Hymn to the Nine Muses"; in lines 77-79, he gives the list of their names. We may note again a passage from Plutarch who around 100 C.E. mentions the Hesiodic Muses in a way that will help introduce the section of the Theogony's proem under discussion here.⁵ Herodes, a teacher of rhetoric, mentions there the muse Calliope in particular and her special relation, in Hesiod, to the kings. He is referring to lines 80-103 of the Hesiodic proem, which concern the power of the Muses to intervene in human affairs; more precisely, Hesiod mentions the gifts of the Muses to men, rulers and poets. He enumerates the Muses and finally sets Calliope apart:

...and Calliope, who is the chiefest of them all, for she attends on worshipful princes: whomsoever of heaven-nourished princes the daughters of great Zeus honour, and behold him at his birth, they pour sweet dew upon his tongue, and from his lips flow gracious words. All the people look towards him while he settles causes with true judgements: and he, speaking surely, would soon make wise and even of a great quarrel; for therefore are there princes wise in heart, because when the people are being misguided in their assembly, they set right the matter again with ease, persuading them with gentle words. And when he passes through a gathering, they greet him as a god with gentle reverence, and he is conspicuous amongst the assembled: such is the holy gift of the Muses to men.⁶

Calliope is the most outstanding of the group because through her the transition is made from the Muses to the revered princes. This introduction of kings in the proem and their dependence on Calliope has seemed irrelevant and quite strange to some commentators.⁷ Normally, the Muses are the goddesses of poetry, whereas princes or kings depend on Zeus; but, at the same time, Hesiod demonstrates the relationship between poet and king, whom he clearly thinks of as parallel beneficiaries of Calliope's favor.⁸ Only Calliope can bestow the Muses' gift on the kings and link poetry to the royal art of persuasion. Her name literally means "beauty of voice,"⁹ which confers the power of persuasion on both the poetic performance and the royal functions: she bestows on both the gift of an efficient utterance. Moreover, it has been suggested that this parallel is Hesiod's innovation, and in fact the Theogony is the only extant poem in which the Muses are said to aid rulers as well as poets (Thalmann 1984:140, espec. n. 18).

It is important to my argument that the king is visualized in the proem of the Theogony as he pronounces his judgment. To...