Euterpe is ‘The Giver of Pleasure’; the one who offers music itself. She is pictured playing a double flute, her own invention. Devotions to this goddess are found at the crescendos of poetry, where the musical imagery of lute, lyre, even the Aeolian Harp, is used as a metaphor for divine inspiration by many Romantic poets. Barely able to strum a few chords, I have sometimes been her instrument, perhaps, in this collection of song lyrics…
Madness and music have accompanied writing since Helicon days, when the Muses conducted wild rituals. When Hermes first invented the lyre from a tortoiseshell, it had nine strings in their honour. There’s a fine line for writers between hearing ‘the voice’ and ‘the voices’!
Euterpe sings the first song, in pictures, here. Muse of multi-taskers, her twin flute has been playing the Last Post, in 2014. She inspired me in a project on WWI poetry, called Cadets, Vets and War Poets
