Thalia (Muse)

Thalia
Goddess of Comedy
Member of the Muses
Roman statue of Thalia from Hadrian's villa, now at the Prado Museum (Madrid)
Personal information
Parents	Zeus and Mnemosyne
Siblings	Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Urania, Clio, Erato, Calliope, Terpsichore, Melpomene and several paternal half-siblings
Consort	Apollo
Children	the Corybantes

In Greek mythology, Thalia (/θəˈlaɪə/^[1][2] or /ˈθeɪliə/;^[3] Ancient Greek: Θάλεια; "the joyous, the flourishing", from Ancient Greek: θάλλειν, thállein; "to flourish, to be verdant"), also spelled Thaleia, was one of the Muses, the goddess who presided over comedy and idyllic poetry. In this context her name means "flourishing", because the praises in her songs flourish through time.^[4]

Appearance

Thalia 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, or occasionally a shepherd's staff or a wreath of ivy.

Family

Thalia was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the eighth-born of the nine Muses. According to Apollodorus, she and Apollo were the parents of the Corybantes.^[5]

Gallery

• 
  "David Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy" by Joshua Reynolds (1760). Thalia is pictured left, and Melpomene to the right
• 
  Engraving by Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617)
• 
  Portrait of Françoise-Marie-Jeanne Picquefeu de Longpré, as Thalia, Muse of Comedy Louis-Michel van Loo (1765–1766)
• 
  (1739)

See also

• Muses in popular culture
  • Thalia Theatre (disambiguation)
• Thalia (Grace)
• Thalia (Nereid)
• Thalia (nymph)

Notes

References

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• 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
• Warburg Institute Iconographic Database