Polyhymnia

“Many-hymned” gives Polyhymnia her name. She is a Greek goddess and one of the Muses. Her spheres include songs performed by many voices, choral song and pantomime. Her influence also extends to historiography and rhetoric, where it overlaps with that of Clio.

Polyhymnia has no parentage given in these passages. She belongs among the Muses, the deities associated with artistic expression. Obscure legends name her as the mother of Triptolemus and the singer Orpheus, who was also said to be the son of Calliope. Plato gives another tradition, in which Polyhymnia is the mother of Eros. These accounts place her within myths concerning other figures, rather than providing her with a separate story of her own.