ABSTRACT
The character of the Muses is more fluid, less fixed than that of the Olympian gods, and richer, less narrowly defined than that of deified abstractions such as Peitho, Mnemosyne, the Charites or the Horai. The personified abstractions which people Hesiod's poetry—Nemesis, Deceit, Old Age and Strife, Aspiration, Victory, Power and Strength—are examples of the first type of personification. These coexist quite happily with all manner of other divinities in a mythopoetic world which conceives of its gods in anthropomorphic terms, where personification is a mode of thought and a way of giving order to experience. The Muses' hair and eyes, their clothes and hairbands all receive praise in language which was used for mortal women as well, but in addition they were paid the sort of honour usually reserved for deities, particularly in compound words including 'gold'. Hesiod, followed by Bacchylides and Pindar, mentions their gold hair-band, Euripides their gold sandals.
