Divine Memory In the classical art and myth of the West, the Muse is a version of a primal deity called the goddess of memory. By invoking her, Virgil and other poets in antiquity acknowledged their reliance on a primal memory source for their feats of mythic recitation. They did not author myths, although they did craft the language for them. They were mythmakers in the sense that they provided language for the mythos, but they did not make up the mythos all by themselves. They repeated what the Muse told them, and they relied on her version of events to indicate causality, moral order, purposefulness. Benefiting from her transpersonal input, ancient poets were able to fathom the causes of things past, decisive events in prehistory that led to known historical events. Thus Virgil relates how the mythical adventures of Aeneas led to the historical founding of Rome in 747 BCE. Another famous invocation of the Muse occurs in the Works and Days, a cosmological poem attributed to Hesiod c. 800 BCE: Muses who from Pieria give glory through song, come to me and tell of Zeus, your own father. (Translation by Richmond Lattimore) Here the poet refers to a tradition that describes nine Muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne. This rather daunting name, pronounced Nuh-MOZ-uh-KNEE, is one of the most precious clues in our Western mythological heritage. This strange name persists as a mere trace in the modern word mnemonic (nuh-MON-ik), referring to devices or techniques used to assist memory. The plural, mnemonics, refers to any system for improving the memory. The name given to the goddess of memory relates to the Greek word mnemonikos, mindfulness, remembering, based on the Indo-European root, *mna-, to remember. The root of the word remember is the name of a mythical woman! If this association looks fantastic to us today, the ancient experience behind it is even more fantastic. If the antique poets are to be believed, the source of the act of remembering is a goddess, some kind of superhuman power, conceived as feminine, capable of loading direct input into the human psyche. The Muse is a divine, supernatural entity who dictates to the receptive human instrument. According to the ancient poets of Europa, we can remember in a special way when the Muse remembers for us, and retells what she knows through us. Such is also the testimony of poets, bards and shamanic storytellers from many cultures around the world. (On the terms Europa, Europan and pan-Europan, see the Lexicon.) The origin of muse is uncertain but it may derive from same root as mont, meaning mountain. Partridge suggests the Indo-European base, *mendh-, found in meditation and menthol, hence breathed, inspired (Origins). It is equally likely that muse relates to the Greek verb muein, to murmur or speak in undertones, as when imparting a secret. Muein is the source of such words as mystery, mystic, mystify. With the insertion of the s this root permutes to form amuse, bemuse, music, musician, museum. Hence evidence of the Muse occurs in many common words connected with acts of leisure and pleasure, but also with instruction. The archaic Muses themselves were at first only three aspects of the goddess Mnemosyne, later multiplied again by three and the triple goddess confers memory which is the most essential gift because no poet could repeat his verses without it (Barbara Walker, The Women’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects). In one version of Greek myth the sisterhood of Muses lived on Mount Helicon where they guarded a fountain of inspiration called the Pierian spring (hence the allusion in Hesiod). Their mother Mnemosyne produced her ninefold offspring by consorting with Zeus, the paramount sky deity of Europa who was probably a rowdy migrant from the Ural Mountains. This coupling occurred on a misty mountain crest. In the psychic life of our ancestors a special contact was made by ascending mountains where high peaks and precipitous ridges merged into the clouds. They intuited a hieros gamos or sacred marriage between earth and sky, and from that union various offspring were born. The tradition of invoking the Muse is not entirely confined to antiquity. Some modern poets have also been graced by her gifts. Poet and mythologist Robert Graves was an historical novelist who experienced trancelike states in which he recalled past events recounted in novels such as I, Claudius. Graves celebrated the Muse in a famous book entitled The White Goddess. This staggeringly rich and complex masterpiece on the historical grammar of poetic myth opens with a poem dedicated to the Mnemosyne, whom he calls the Mountain Mother: All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by God Apollo’s golden mean — In scorn of which I sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom I desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go my headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano’s head, Among pack ice, and where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper’s, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-colored to white hips. Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate the Mountain Mother, And every song-bird shout a while for her; But I am gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so great a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence I forget cruelty and past betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall. The mix of mystical and erotic elements is typical of poetry that celebrates the Muse, and the allusions to whiteness indicate a mysterious effect known to mystics and psychonauts of all ages. John Lash
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 08:15:30 +0000
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