缪斯是古希腊诸神系谱中的歌唱女神，渐次又成为一切知识的保护神。自荷马史诗起，开篇呼唤缪斯就已是诗歌创作与表演的程式甚至仪式。对缪斯的呼唤开启了西方文学，“缪斯”这一符号还深刻地影响着西方艺术、民俗、心理以至于整个文明的发展。但是，对于这样重要而熟悉的缪斯，专门的、系统的研究竟极为稀少。即使是在西方，人们对于缪斯的了解也十分有限，既没有予以缪斯本身足够的关注，也没有建立起缪斯研究的体系。中国的缪斯研究则更加冷寂，缪斯甚至没有被当作一个专门的问题。之所以会出现这一局面，根本原因在于，尽管缪斯拥有巨大的影响力，关于缪斯的表述往往过于简单、短小，在唤起或提及缪斯之后，诗人就会转向讲述其他内容。文本本身的琐碎使得缪斯极易被忽略，也造成了缪斯研究的碎片化。缪斯研究的薄弱，既有世界观的问题，也有方法论的问题，寻找能够统领“缪斯碎片”的线索、搭建具有内在逻辑的知识体系，可能是缪斯研究的关键，也可能在缪斯研究中实现创造性的突破。

从哲学的角度来看，事物的名称与这一名称指称的对象之间存在着深刻的关系，缪斯的名称体现了古希腊人对缪斯最根本的认识。这些纷繁复杂的名称牵引出语文学、神话学、诗学、哲学、文化地理学、历史学等领域中与缪斯有关的一系列问题，是研究缪斯的天然的线索。遵循古典学研究追溯词源的基本路径，在考辨缪斯的名称的基础上，逐级探索缪斯的神话学、诗学、哲学、文化地理学、史学等“缪斯问题”，便可获得关于缪斯广泛而又系统的认识，在杂乱的局面中勾勒出清晰的缪斯图景，建立起“缪斯文化体系”。

缪斯的命名运动全部完成于古希腊，这意味着“缪斯”这一符号的内涵在古希腊已非常丰富。后人继承了古希腊的“缪斯”，却在使用过程中将这一符号简化、压缩为单薄的“文艺女神”。梳理纷纭甚至混乱的缪斯的名称，考辨每一个名称的词源、词义与命名机制，是缪斯研究的基础工作，由此，便能还原“缪斯”的丰富性与“缪斯问题”的复杂性，并进入与缪斯有关的一系列文化现象。

缪斯首先是古希腊神话中的女神，“缪斯问题”首先是神话学的问题。自缪斯在《伊利亚特》第一行被呼出，作为“女神”的缪斯就进入了继承传统与融汇创新的双向“神化运动”之中，其形象也得到了不断的丰富甚至是改变。诗人对缪斯的称名最直接地体现了这一进程。从“女神”到“缪斯”，再到“奥林波斯女神”“赫利孔女神”“皮埃里亚女神”，缪斯的名称不断地变化，缪斯也从笼统的神灵成为古希腊诸神系谱中的一类神灵，并与自然神宁芙、冥府神谟涅摩绪涅、外来神狄奥倪索斯的“狂女”等各类神灵发生了形象上的交融，展现出广义上的音乐与自然、生死、疯癫、内外文化交流等重大主题的内在联系，深刻地参与到古希腊人认识世界与自我的进程之中。

缪斯从诞生起就司掌诗的创作与表演，诗，始终是构成“缪斯”这一符号最重要的元素。然而，人们大都只关注缪斯对诗的灵感的启迪，忽略了缪斯与诗的技艺的联系，把缪斯排除在亚里士多德式“诗学”之外。这一认识恰恰是反“缪斯”的。仅从文本来看，缪斯与灵感的联系并非与生俱来，若考据缪斯的类名Μοῦσα的词源与词义，其中一种假设或许蕴藏着灵感的萌芽，亦即，认为缪斯从诞生起就象征着精神层面的行动。但是，不论是从文本还是从称名来看，缪斯与技艺的联系都始终存在，甚至日趋紧密。研究“缪斯诗学”需要重新认识“诗学”这一概念，在“缪斯诗学”中，“神赋论”与“摹仿论”两大看似相反的创作理论得到了统一。

除了诗，古希腊的“缪斯”还指向音乐、数学、哲学甚至一切知识，这些意指，特别是音乐，在某种程度上攀升到更高一层的理念世界，进入哲学的领域。“缪斯哲学”探讨缪斯的本体论问题，以及缪斯所关联的形而上学的思辨。九缪斯的名称之一“卡利俄佩”清晰地表明，乐音是缪斯存在于物质世界的载体。但是，作为音乐之神的缪斯并不等同于乐音，她们是拥有和谐品质的神灵，能够为听众带来精神上的影响。乐音成为了缪斯往来于物质世界与非物质世界、神域与人间的媒介，缪斯借此由音乐之和谐实现了世界之和谐。缪斯的名称还体现了古希腊人对于音乐形而上的认知：“阿尔凯”赋予了音乐作为世界之“原”的意义，“奈特”“梅斯”与“许帕特”则是对“天体音乐”理论的具象化呈现。

不论作为物质还是非物质的存在，不论作为具体的神灵还是抽象的理念，缪斯都有其占居的空间。缪斯的部分名称就来自于其所占居的空间，深刻地影响着缪斯形象的建构与特质的表达。“缪斯的文化地理学”探究不同地理空间中的缪斯。古风时期，缪斯所占居的空间多与山有关，缪斯的三大附名“奥林波斯女神”“赫利孔女神”与“皮埃里亚女神”分别反映了缪斯与奥林波斯山、赫利孔山与皮埃里亚的关系。这些山地是神圣空间及其在世俗的投射，缪斯处于其中，也呈现出神圣的一面与世俗的形变。古典时期以来，埃庇卡摩斯与欧墨洛斯用河流、湖泊、海洋等水体的名称命名缪斯，赋予了缪斯水神的特质。这些水体遍及整个环地中海与黑海地区，与古希腊大移民运动的路线相重合，反映出正在萌芽的“泛希腊主义”思潮。

缪斯的研究还需要历史学的视角。用历时的眼光审视命名与用名的过程中缪斯如何成为缪斯，能够获得对缪斯与“缪斯问题”的整体认知。在缪斯的形成史中，赫西俄德“分而别之”的九缪斯是一个极富代表性的“神谱”。九缪斯的分立过程跨越千年，与古希腊知识系统的建立基本同步：公元前8世纪，赫西俄德命名了缪斯这一群体中的成员，从此，缪斯走上了分立的道路，至公元前1世纪左右，各司其职的缪斯成为了人们的共识。梳理缪斯的全部名称在古希腊的演变，则可以从全局的高度回顾缪斯的历史问题。从古风时期，到古典时期，再到希腊化时期、帝国与后古代时期，在每个重要的历史时期，缪斯的名称都呈现出富有时代特征的变化、顺应了历史发展的潮流。可以说，缪斯的称名史不仅是缪斯的生成流变史的缩影，也是古希腊文明史的缩影。

以缪斯之名为线索，研究缪斯所关联的语文学、神话学、诗学、哲学、文化地理学、历史学诸问题，或可初步建立起一个系统的“缪斯文化体系”。古希腊人对于缪斯的命名为后世所沿用，缪斯早已跨越时代、文化与信仰的藩篱，深刻地参与到西方以及世界文明的全部进程中。系统地研究古希腊的缪斯与“缪斯问题”，对于研究从古至今所有的缪斯与“缪斯问题”都具有开创性意义，对于研究古希腊的其他神灵也可能具有参考价值。

The Muses are the goddesses of singing in Greek theogony, gradually becoming the patrons of all knowledge. It had been a formula and even a rite to first invocate the Muses since the composition and performance of the Iliad. The invocation to the Muses began Western literature, and the symbol “Muse(s)” profoundly influenced not only Western literature, but also Western art, folklore, psychology, and even the whole culture. However, the study on the Muses is rather limited though the Muses are highly significant and renowned. Even in the Western world, people know little about the Muses, neither paying enough attention to the Muses nor studying the Muses in a systematic way. In China, the study on the Muses is more esoteric; in fact, Chinese scholars have not taken the Muses as a subject worth studying. The underlying reason is that descriptions of the Muses in ancient Greek texts are overly simplistic and fragmented. Despite frequently referring to the Muses, poets would abruptly shift their topic. Consequently, the key to the study on the Muses is to find a thread which could knit fragmental texts, and then establish an organised body of knowledge of the Muses.

There is a profound relationship between the name and the entity it refers to, and the Muses’ names reflect the ancient Greeks’ fundamental understanding of the Muses. These multitudinous names leading us to a series of issues of the Muses in literature, mythology, poetics, philosophy, cultural geography, history and so on, are natural threads to knit “the Cultural System of the Muses”. While tracing each name of the Muses, we could approach this topic from different aspects, get a wide knowledge of them, and finally establish the “Cultural System of the Muses”.

The naming of the Muses was completed in ancient Greece, which means that at that time, connotations of the symbol “Muse(s)” had been as sophisticated as the Muses’ names. Greek “Muse(s)” was inherited, while its sophisticated connotations were simplified into “the goddess of literature and art”. Compiling and classifying all the names of the Muses, exploring each etymology and meaning, and researching the nomenclature, are the basis of the study on the Muses. Next, we may discover the depth of “Muse(s)” and the complexity of the “Muses’ Question”, and go into the culture of the Muses.

The Muses’ names first reflect their images in mythology. Since the Muse was invocated as “Goddess” in the first line of the Iliad, the Muses’ apotheosis between tradition and innovation had begun. Along the way, the Muses’ names varied continuously, as well as their images. From “Goddess” to “Muse”, “Olympiades”, “Heliconiades” and “Pierides”, the Muses gradually became a category of goddesses in Greek theogony, and built a relationship with other deities, such as the nature spirits Nymphs, the Chthonic Mnemosyne, and the exotic Maenads, which reflects the interconnectedness between general music and nature, life, death, madness, cultural exchanges, and plays an important role in the ancient Greeks’ understanding of themselves and the world.

The Muses had been the goddesses of poetry from their earliest days, and therefore, the most essential element of the symbol “Muse(s)” should always be poetry. Most people just know the Muses’ poetic inspiration, and ignore their poetic techne, excluding the Muses from Aristotle’s “Poetics”. It is exactly opposite to the Muses. Textual evidence shows that the connection between the Muses and inspiration is not inherent, while a supposition of the etymology of Μοῦσα, the general name of the Muses, might support that the Muses had been related to various mental activities since they were named. However, the Muses and techne always have a close connection, whether judging from texts or names. “The Poetics of the Muses” provides a new understanding of “Poetics”, which unites two seemingly opposite ideas of creation.

In addition to poetry, Greek “Muse(s)” also refers to music, mathematics, philosophy and even all knowledge, in some way ascending to a higher plane, especially music. “The Philosophy of the Muses” explores the ontology and metaphysics of the Muses. “Calliope”, one of the nine Muses’ names, clearly indicates that the sound of music is the vehicle of the Muses in the physical world, while as the goddesses of music, the Muses are not the same as the sound of music, who are deities with harmonious nature, impacting on the mind of their audience. To some degree, the sound of music serves as the medium of the epiphany of the Muses, through which the goddesses transmit their divine harmonious nature to the world. The Muses’ names also show the metaphysics of music in ancient Greece: “Arche” gives music meaning as the “Principle” of the world, while “Nete”, “Mese” and “Hypate” represent the famous philosophical concept “Music of the Spheres”.

Either as personified goddesses or abstract ideas, the Muses take up space in the world. Some of the Muses’ names derive from their spaces, in which the Muses show different characters. “The Cultural Geography of the Muses” explores the Muses in various spaces. In the Archaic Period, most of the Muses’ spaces consist of mountains. The Muses’ epithets “Olympiades”, “Heliconiades” and “Pierides” clearly manifest their relationship with Mount Olympus, Mount Helicon and Pieria. These mountains are sacred spaces and their projections in the earth, in which the Muses show their divinity and diversity. Since the Classical Period, Epicharmus and Eumelos named the Muses after bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, oceans, and so on, and therefore the Muses became water deities to some degree. These bodies of water are found in the entire Mediterranean and Black Sea, reflecting the route of Colonisation in ancient Greece and the rising Panhellenism at that time.   

“The History of the Muses” forms an important part of the study on the Muses as well. When going through the process of naming the Muses, we could see how the Muses became the Muses, comprehending the Muses and the “Muses’ Question” holistically. In the history of the Muses, the separation of the Hesiodic nine Muses is pretty representative, which lasted for almost a thousand years, in step with the establishment of the body of knowledge in ancient Greece. In the 8th century BC, Hesiod named each member of his nine Muses, and from then on, the separation of the Muses started. Until the 1st century BC, it had been a common view that the nine Muses did their respective pieces. Tracing the evolution of the Muses’ names in ancient Greece will help us review the history of the Muses. From the Archaic Period to the Classical Period, the Hellenism, and the Empire and Late Antiquity, the Muses’ names kept changing with the times. Arguably, the history of the Muses’ names is the epitome of the history of the Muses as well as ancient Greek civilisation.

Following the Muses’ names, studying the “Muses’ Question” in philology, mythology, poetics, philosophy, cultural geography and history, we might roughly establish “the Cultural System of the Muses”. The Muses’ names in ancient Greece are still used today, and the Muses have leapt over fences of times, cultures and faiths, participating in the course of Western and even global civilisation. The systematic study on the Muses and “Muses’ Question” in ancient Greece is of groundbreaking significance for the study on the Muses and the “Muses’ Question” throughout history and might be valuable for studies on other Greek deities.