Muses

Plutarch in his Table Talk IX question 14 cometh right out and eveneth Plato's sirens with the Muses. (lvs. 280 to 283)

“ἀλλά μοι δοκεῖ Πλάτων ὡς ἀτράκτους καὶ ἠλακάτας τοὺς ἄξονας σφονδύλους δὲ τοὺς ἀστέρας, ἐξηλλαγμένως ἐνταῦθα καὶ τὰς Μούσας Σειρῆνας ὀνομάζειν, ‘εἰρούσας’ τὰ θεῖα καὶ λεγούσας ἐν Ἅιδου, καθάπερ ὁ Σοφοκλέους Ὀδυσσεύς φησι Σειρῆνας εἰσαφικέσθαι

Φόρκου κόρας, θροοῦντε⁷ τοὺς Ἅιδου νόμους.

746

Μοῦσαι δ᾿ εἰσὶν ὀκτὼ μὲν αἱ συμπεριπολοῦσαι ταῖς ὀκτὼ σφαίραις, μία δὲ τὸν περὶ γῆν  εἴληχε τόπον. αἱ μὲν οὖν ὀκτὼ περιόδοις ἐφεστῶσαι τὴν τῶν πλανωμένων ἄστρων πρὸς τὰ ἀπλανῆ καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα συνέχουσι καὶ διασῴζουσιν ἁρμονίαν· μία δέ, τὸν μεταξὺ γῆς καὶ σελήνης τόπον ἐπισκοποῦσα καὶ περιπολοῦσα, τοῖς θνητοῖς ὅσον αἰσθάνεσθαι καὶ δέχεσθαι πέφυκε χαρίτων καὶ ῥυθμοῦ καὶ ἁρμονίας ἐνδίδωσι διὰ λόγου καὶ ᾠδῆς, πειθὼ πολιτικῆς καὶ κοινωνητικῆς συνεργὸν ἐπάγουσα παραμυθουμένην καὶ κηλοῦσαν ἡμῶν τὸ ταραχῶδες καὶ τὸ πλανώμενον ὥσπερ ἐξ ἀνοδίας ἀνακαλουμένην ἐπιεικῶς καὶ καθιστᾶσαν.2

Bὅσσα δὲ μὴ πεφίληκενΖεύς,

ἀτύζονται βοὰν

Πιερίδων ἀίοντα

κατὰ Πίνδαρον.”

“My view is that just as Plato speaks of ‘shafts’ and ‘spindles’ instead of ‘axes,’ and of ‘whorls’ for ‘stars,’ so here, too, contrary to usage, he gives the name of ‘Sirens’ to the Muses, because they ‘seyen’ (eirousas), that is ‘speak,’ the divine truths in the realm of Death. Similarly Sophocles’ Odysseus^c says that he visited the Sirens,

Daughters of Phorcus, singing the tunes of Death.

There are, then, eight Muses that circle round with the eight spheres, while one has allotted to her the region of the earth. Now the eight that preside over orbits maintain and preserve the harmony of the planets with the fixed stars and with one another, while one, who oversees and patrols the region between the earth and the moon, grants mortals through speech and song all that their nature allows them to perceive and accept of grace, rhythm, and harmony, calling in Persuasion the helpmeet of the arts of state and society to cast her calming spell on the tumultuous element in us, and gently to recall our errant steps when they have lost the path and set them in their place.

But all things that are strangers to Zeus’s love

Shrink when they hear the ringing

Voice of the Pierides,

as Pindar says.”

Muses once three. 

 

(3) εἶπεν οὖν ὁ ἀδελφός, ὅτι τρεῖς ᾔδεσαν οἱ παλαιοὶ Μούσας· “καὶ τούτου λέγειν ἀπόδειξιν ὀψιμαθές ἐστι καὶ ἄγροικον ἐν τοσούτοις καὶ τοιούτοις ἀνδράσιν. αἰτία δ᾿ οὐχ ὡς ἔνιοι λέγουσι τὰ μελῳδούμενα γένη, τὸ διάτονον καὶ τὸ χρωματικὸν καὶ τὸ ἐναρμόνιον· οὐδ᾿ οἱ τὰ διαστήματα παρέχοντες ὅροι, νήτη καὶ μέση καὶ ὑπάτη.

(3) So my brother said that the ancients knew of three Muses only. “To give proof of this fact,” he continued, “in a company so numerous and so learned would be boorish pedantry. But the reason for it does not lie, as some say, in the three types of melody, diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic,e nor in the three notes that establish the intervals, top, middle, and bottom.

πάντες γὰρ ‘ἄνθρωποι

θεῶν χατέουσι’ καθ᾿ Ὅμηρον, οὐ πάντες δὲ πάντων. ἀλλ᾿ ἐκεῖνο θαυμάζω, πῶς ἔλαθε Λαμπρίαν τὸ λεγόμενον ὑπὸ Δελφῶν. λέγουσι γὰρ Bοὐ φθόγγων οὐδὲ χορδῶν ἐπωνύμους γεγονέναι τὰς Μούσας παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς, ἀλλὰ τοῦ κόσμου τριχῇ πάντα νενεμημένου πρώτην μὲν εἶναι τὴν τῶν ἀπλανῶν μερίδα, δευτέραν δὲ τὴν τῶν πλανωμένων, ἐσχάτην δὲ τὴν τῶν ὑπὸ σελήνην, συνηρτῆσθαι δὲ πάσας καὶ συντετάχθαι κατὰ λόγους ἐναρμονίους, ὧν ἑκάστης φύλακα Μοῦσαν εἶναι, τῆς μὲν πρώτης Ὑπάτην, τῆς δ᾿ ἐσχάτης Νεάτην, Μέσην δὲ τῆς1 μεταξύ, συνέχουσαν ἅμα καὶ συνεπιστρέφουσαν, ὡς ἀνυστόν2 ἐστι, τὰ θνητὰ τοῖς θείοις3 καὶ τὰ περίγεια τοῖς οὐρανίοις· ὡς καὶ Πλάτων ᾐνίξατο τοῖς τῶν Μοιρῶν Cὀνόμασιν τὴν μὲν Ἄτροπον τὴν δὲ Κλωθὼ4 τὴν δὲ Λάχεσιν προσαγορεύσας· ἐπεὶ ταῖς γε τῶν ὀκτὼ σφαιρῶν περιφοραῖς Σειρῆνας οὐ Μούσας ἰσαρίθμους ἐπέστησεν.”

All men, it is true, ‘need the gods,’ in Homer’s phrase,a but all are not needed by all. But it puzzles me how Lamprias can have overlooked what the Delphians say. They tell us that it is not from notes of voice or string that the Muses have been given the names they have there. Rather the whole universe is divided into three regions: the first is that of the fixed stars, the second that of the planets,b and the last the sublunary region; they are all knit and ordered together in harmonious formulae; and each has its guardian Muse, the first region Hypatê, the lowest Neätê, and the intermediate Mesê, who holds together and intertwines, so far as is feasible, things mortal and divine, terrestrial and heavenly. Plato, too, put this in a disguised form, calling them by the names of the Fates, Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesisc; observe that it was Sirens, not Muses, that he set to preside over the revolutions of the eight spheres, one for each.”