You have awoken me, young bard. My name is Calliope; I am the Muse of epic poetry. My eight sisters and I are the fair-haired daughters of Jupiter, goddesses of the arts and sciences. We are the wellspring from which the waters of knowledge flow. Throughout the ages, we have inspired artists, poets, and philosophers alike. Bestowing upon them their greatest ideas. For we possess the power to take an ordinary shepherd, tending to his flock, and turn him into one of the greatest poets in all the ancient world. There was a time, millennia ago, when every great artist would call upon us before reciting a famous work. Follow me and I shall guide you through our sacred realm.
Our home is here on Mount Helicon in the land of Boeotia. As we go along the straight path to our sacred grove, you will see a portrait of Eupheme carved in relief on a standing stone. She was one of the younger Graces and daemona of praise, who nursed us as infants. Farther down the path, we will pass by the rushing river Olmeius. There stands, alongside the sculptures of the Muses, a statue of my son, Orpheus, the greatest poet to have ever lived. A statue most beautiful to look upon, it carries a harp strung with nine notes, one in honor of each Muse.
Finally, we've reached the sacred grove at the base of our holy mountain. Here, we delight in song and flutes, dancing barefoot in the grassy fields. My sisters perform their lovely dances upon most high Helicon and move with vigorous feet, donned in saffron robes and wreaths of violets atop their long-braided locks. Ascending from this grove up the mountain, there is what is called the Hippocrene, the horse's fountain. It miraculously sprung from the earth when the winged-horse, Pegasus, struck the ground with his enchanted hoof. We prance about the shimmering, blue water and around the altar of almighty Jove.
After we have washed our tender bodies in the sacred spring, we arise and go abroad by dawn light. Veiled in thick mist, we utter our song with lovely voices, praising Jupiter, who wields the aegis, queenly Juno, who walks on golden sandals, the daughters of Jove, bright-eyed Minerva, and Diana, who delights in arrows, as well as Neptune, the earth-shaker, reverent Justitia, lovely Venus, Juventas of the golden chalice, demure Latona, rosy Aurora, glorious Sol, serene Luna, bountiful Ceres too, vast Oceanus, and the holy race of all the immortal ones that are everlasting.
We Muses are always dancing and love to busy ourselves with song and strings, but when we see Apollo beginning to lead the dance, we put our hearts into our singing even more than before and send down from Helicon an all-harmonious sound. At the peak of the mountain is a temple to Phoebus Apollo, the god of truth. He is the light above. From high on the azure plane, he can see all and so knows all. He is the leader of the Muses and my dearly beloved. My heart belongs to his and his to mine.
Now we have arrived at the temple's courtyard. Come with me to the stoa, sit beside me on the cool marble, and I shall tell you a marvelous fable, one unlike any you have ever heard and has not been told in over a thousand years. This is a tale of adventure, love, heroism, tragedy, and triumph. The last I told this to was a young, precocious librarian in an ancient city. Sadly, his works have been lost to time but today they will be lost no more.
Long ago, in the midst of primeval man's dark ignorance, a ray of light shone from a green peninsula in the heart of a great, blue sea. There lived a wise monarch who ruled a small kingdom. He taught his people to honor their ancestors, the spirits of nature, and the heavenly powers, whom they called numina. As the kingdom expanded, they began to carve depictions of the numina out of gleaming, white marble, as beautiful as the people themselves. In time, they became known as the Olympian gods, and to their people, they were great heroes, innovators, explorers, and conquerors. The kingdom that honored these gods went on to become the greatest empire that the world has ever known. THIS is their story! But first, like with any good story, we must start at the beginning, before the earth was formed, at the very moment of creation…