There are nine Muses of poetry, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory—that strange divinity who binds together the past and the future. Of these nine, the most important is Kalliope, she of the “lovely voice,” the muse of epic poetry; and she is rightly regarded, by Hesiod and others, as the greatest of them all.
Epic poetry is, in truth, the supreme expression of poetry—its highest mountain peak. It is so great and so difficult that the proof of its greatness lies precisely in its rarity.
