Calliope had two famous sons,Orpheus[2] andLinus,[3] by eitherApollo or KingOeagrus ofThrace. She taught Orpheus verses for singing.[2] According to Hesiod, she was also the wisest of the Muses, as well as the most assertive. Calliope married Oeagrus inPimpleia, a town nearMount Olympus.[4] She is said to have defeated the daughters ofPierus, king of Thessaly, in a singing match, and then, to punish their presumption, turned them intomagpies.[5]
She was sometimes believed to beHomer's muse for theIliad and theOdyssey.[8] The Roman epic poetVirgil invokes her in theAeneid ("Aid, O Calliope, the martial song!").[9] In some cases, she is said to be the mother ofSirens by theriver-godAchelous.[10] Another account adds that Calliope boreRhesus to the river-godStrymon.[11]
Calliope, muse de l'éloquence et de la poésie épique (Calliope, muse of eloquence and epic poetry)
Calliope is usually shown with a writing tablet in her hand. At times, she is depicted carrying a roll of paper or a book, or wearing a gold crown. She is also depicted with her children.
Here rise to life again, dead poetry! Let it, O holy Muses, for I am yours, And here Calliope, strike a higher key, Accompanying my song with that sweet air which made the wretched Magpies feel a blow that turned all hope of pardon to despair
— Dante, trans. Esolen,[12] "Purgatorio", Canto I, lines 7 to 12
Calliope Beach inAntarctica is named after the muse, as is thecalliope hummingbird of North and Central America, and thecalliope steam organ. Calliope Saddle is part of the Thisbe Valley Track in the Catlins Forest, South Otago, NZ. The Queensland town of Calliope is another location named after the muse, and is located in central Queensland.
^Hesiod,Theogony 79–80: This belief in the goddess's identity, however, really cannot be proved from the text of theIliad, because there is no evidence as to the referent of θεά (goddess). Neither Kirk nor Leaf makes such a claim in their commentaries on theIliad. They simply say that she is "the Muse" (Μοῦσα). Kirk does say that it was conventional for Muses to invoked at the beginning of oral poems, since the process of the oral tradition was for the Muse to "sing" through the singer. See G. S. Kirk, ed.,Books 1–4, vol. I inThe Iliad: A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 51; and Walter Leaf, ed.,Books I–XII, vol. I ofThe Iliad. 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1900), p. 3.
^abHoopes And Evslin,The Greek Gods.ISBN0-590-44110-8,ISBN0-590-44110-8, 1995, page 77. "His father was a Thracian king; his mother the muse Calliope. For a while, he lived on Parnassus with his mother and his eight beautiful aunts and there met Apollo who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo was taken with Orpheus, gave him his little golden lyre, and taught him to play. And his mother taught him to make verses for singing."
^Pseudo-Apollodorus,Bibliotheca 2.4.9: "This Linus was a brother of Orpheus; he came to Thebes and became a Theban."
^Apollonius of Rhodes,Argonautica 1.2.23–34: "First then let us name Orpheus whom once Calliope bare, it is said, wedded to Thracian Oeagrus, near the Pimpleian height. Men say that he by the music of his songs charmed the stubborn rocks upon the mountains and the course of rivers. And the wild oak-trees to this day, tokens of that magic strain, that grow at Zone on the Thracian shore, stand in ordered ranks close together, the same which under the charm of his lyre he led down from Pieria."
Euripides,The Rhesus of Euripides translated into English rhyming verse with explanatory notes by Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A., Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. Euripides. Gilbert Murray. New York. Oxford University Press. 1913.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
