Thalia (Muse)

For one of the three Graces, see Thalia (Grace). For other uses see Thalia (disambiguation).

Roman statue of Thalia from Hadrian's Villa, now at the Prado Museum (Madrid)

Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry, Jean-Marc Nattier

Thalia (/θəˈlaɪə/; Ancient Greek: Θάλεια, Θαλία; "the joyous, the flourishing", from Ancient Greek: θάλλειν, thállein; "to flourish, to be verdant") was the Muse who presided over comedy and idyllic poetry. In this context her name means "flourishing", because the praises in her songs flourish through time.^[1] She was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the eighth-born of the nine Muses.

According to pseudo-Apollodorus, she and Apollo were the parents of the Corybantes.^[2] Other ancient sources, however, gave the Corybantes different parents.^[3]

She was portrayed as a young woman with a joyous air, crowned with ivy, wearing boots and holding a comic mask in her hand. Many of her statues also hold a bugle and a trumpet (both used to support the actors' voices in ancient comedy), or occasionally a shepherd’s staff or a wreath of ivy.

See also

• Muses in popular culture

Notes

References

• Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. "Thalia" 1. p. 442.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Thaleia" 1.

External links

• Media related to Thalia at Wikimedia Commons
• Theoi.com - Thaleia
• Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (ca 40 images of Thalia)