Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse paintings of Melpoméne, she is represented with a tragic mask and also often holds in her other hand a knife or club. In Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who had eight other daughters, Melpoméne's sisters and the eight other muses are: Calliope, muse of epic poetry; Clio, muse of history; Euterpe, muse of flute playing; Terpsichore, muse of dancing; Erato, muse of erotic poetry; Thalia muse of comedy; Polyhymnia, muse of hymns; and Urania, muse of astronomy. Reynolds was inspired not only by Sarah Siddons' extreme talent to embody the tragic heroine in Macbeth, but
The White Goddess the Ogham letters in the alphabet used in parts of Gaelic Ireland and Britain contained a calendar that contained the key to an ancient liturgy involving the human sacrifice of a sacred king, and, further, that these letter names concealed lines of Ancient Greek hexameter describing the goddess. Graves' "Tree Calendar" has no relation to any historical Celtic calendar. His interpretations rather rely on the book "Ogygia" by the 17th-century bard Roderick O'Flaherty. In "The White Goddess", Graves proposed a hypothetical Gallic tree goddess, Druantia, who has become somewhat popular with contemporary Neopagans. Druantia is an archetype of the eternal