Sing, Goddess

The Muse, the poet, and the authority to begin

Epic begins by asking for a voice beyond the poet's own. Homer calls on the goddess to sing or tell; Virgil asks her to disclose the causes of suffering. Dante carries this inherited appeal into a poem whose remembered journey must become a truthful account.

1. Iliad 1.1–7
2. Odyssey 1.1–10
3. Aeneid 1.1–11
4. Inferno 2.7–9
5. Purgatorio 1.7–12