OF GODS AND MEN

There is a painting by Simon Vouet (1590-1649) in The National Gallery in Washington entitled Urania and Calliope, (1634). The two Muses sit together near a temple of Apollo. Urania, who inspires those who contemplate the order of the heavens, wears her starry crown. To her left sits Calliope, Homer’s Muse, holding a copy of The Odyssey while to her left winged babies carry laurel wreathes of achievement heavenward. Urania has her hand on the shoulder of Calliope who in turn faces her, and so the Muse of Epic Poetry looks to the Muse of those who observe the heavenly order. Meanwhile Urania turns and looks directly into the eyes of the viewer of the painting as if to suggest the Delphic admonition to know thyself.

With St. Valentine’s Day approaching and Lent on its way I’m reading Plato’s Phaedrus. It is all rather wonderful. For Socrates, it is a rare romp in the woods as he and the beautiful Phaedrus sit together under a Plane Tree at mid-day along the banks of the Ilissus River in a place dedicated to the god Pan, rich with nymphs. As cicadas sound overhead the story is told of how these tiny, noisy, creatures report to the Muses and tell which humans honor them and how.

To the eldest, Calliope, and her next sister, Urania, they tell of those who live a life of philosophy and so do honor the music of those twain whose theme is the heavens and all the story of gods and men, whose song is the noblest of them all. 1

1.      Phaedrus, R. Hackforth (trans); Hamilton/Cairns (ed).