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Pierides (mythology)
Pierides (mythology)
Pierides (mythology)
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The Challenge of the Pierides by Rosso (c. 1520)

In Greek mythology, the Pierides (Ancient Greek: Πιερίδες) or Emathides (Ἠμαθίδες) were the nine sisters who defied the Muses in a contest of song and, having been defeated, were turned into birds. The Muses themselves are sometimes called by this name.[1][2]

Names and family

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The Pierides were the daughters of Pierus, king of Emathia[3] in Macedon, by Antiope[4] of Pieria or Euippe[5] of Paionia. The sisters were also called Emathides, named after their paternal uncle Emathus.[6] In other sources, they are recounted to be seven in number and named them as Achelois,[7] Neilo, Tritone, Asopo, Heptapora, Tipoplo, and Rhodia.

Mythology

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(Holland, Amsterdam), Antonio Tempesta (Italy, Florence, 1555–1630) Metamorphosis of the Pierides by Wilhelm Janson (1606) at Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Ovid's account

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In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Urania, one of the Muses, recounts their contest with the Pierides to Athena in the following excerpts:[8]

So spoke the Muse. And now was heard the sound of pennons in the air, and voices, too, gave salutations from the lofty trees. Minerva, thinking they were human tongues, looked up in question whence the perfect words; but on the boughs, nine ugly magpies perched, those mockers of all sounds, which now complained their hapless fate. And as she wondering stood, Urania, goddess of the Muse, rejoined; — 'Look, those but lately worsted in dispute augment the number of unnumbered birds. — Pierus was their father, very rich in lands of Pella; and their mother (called Evippe of Paeonia) when she brought them forth, nine times evoked, in labours nine, Lucina's aid. — Unduly puffed with pride, because it chanced their number equalled ours these stupid sisters, hither to engage in wordy contest, fared through many towns; — through all Haemonia and Achaia came to us, and said; — 'Oh, cease your empty songs, attuned to dulcet numbers, that deceive the vulgar, untaught throng. If aught is yours of confidence, O Thespian Deities contend with us: our number equals yours. We will not be defeated by your arts; nor shall your songs prevail. — Then, conquered, give Hyantean Aganippe; yield to us the Medusean Fount; — and should we fail, we grant Emathia's plains, to where uprise Paeonia's peaks of snow. — Let chosen Nymphs award the prize.'

The nymphs became the judges of the musical contest. One of the Pierides sang about the flight of the Olympian gods from the monster Typhoeus:

'Twas shameful to contend; it seemed more shameful to submit. At once, the chosen Nymphs swore justice by their streams, and sat for judgment on their thrones of rock. At once, although the lot had not been cast, the leading sister hastened to begin.—She chanted of celestial wars; she gave the Giants false renown; she gave the Gods small credit for great deeds.—She droned out, "Forth, those deepest realms of earth, Typhoeus came, and filled the Gods with fear. They turned their backs in flight to Egypt; and the wearied rout, where Great Nile spreads his seven-channeled mouth, were there received. – Thither the earth-begot Typhoeus hastened: but the Gods of Heaven deceptive shapes assumed.—Lo, Jupiter (Zeus as Libyan Ammon's crooked horns attest) was hidden in the leader of a flock; Apollo in a crow; Bacchus in a goat; Diana (Artemis) in a cat; Venus (Aphrodite) in a fish; Saturnian Juno (Hera) in a snow-white cow; Cyllenian Hermes in an Ibis' wings.

Urania and Athena continued their conversation about the great match:

"Such stuff she droned out from her noisy mouth: and then they summoned us; but, haply, time permits thee not, nor leisure thee permits, that thou shouldst hearken to our melodies." "Nay doubt it not", quoth Pallas (Athena), "but relate your melodies in order." And she sat beneath the pleasant shadows of the grove. And thus again Urania; "On our side we trusted all to one." Which having said, Calliope, mother of Orpheus of Leivithra, arose. Her glorious hair was bound with ivy. She attuned the chords, and chanted as she struck the sounding strings:

Sébastien Leclerc, Pierides turned into magpies, 1676, eau-forte, Lyon, Public Library

Calliope sang many stories from myths during the contest with the Pierides. The Muse recounted the abduction of Persephone by god of underworld Hades and the sorrow of the young girl's mother, the goddess Demeter, for the loss of her beloved daughter. Calliope also told the account of the unrequited love of the river god Alpheus to the nymph Arethusa, and also the adventure of hero Triptolemus in Scythia, where he encountered the envious King Lyncus. The following lines described the punishment of the victorious Muses to their vanquished opponents, the Pierides, being transformed into birds:[9]

The greatest of our number ended thus her learned songs; and with concordant voice the chosen Nymphs adjudged the Deities, on Helicon who dwell, should be proclaimed the victors. But the vanquished nine began to scatter their abuse; to whom rejoined the goddess; "Since it seems a trifling thing that you should suffer a deserved defeat, and you must add unmerited abuse to heighten your offence, and since by this appears the end of our endurance, we shall certainly proceed to punish you according to the limit of our wrath." But these Emathian sisters laughed to scorn our threatening words; and as they tried to speak, and made great clamour, and with shameless hands made threatening gestures, suddenly stiff quills sprouted from out their finger-nails, and plumes spread over their stretched arms; and they could see the mouth of each companion growing out into a rigid beak.—And thus new birds were added to the forest.—While they made complaint, these jays that defile our groves, moving their stretched-out arms, began to float, suspended in the air. And since that time their ancient eloquence, their screaming notes, their tiresome zeal of speech have all remained.

Pierides Changed into Magpies by Richard van Orle (1683–1732) at Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium

Antoninus' account

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Another retelling of the contest of Pierides and Muses appeared in Antoninus Liberalis' Metamorphoses:[10]

Zeus made love to Mnemosyne in Pieria and became father of the Muses. Around about that time Pierus, was king of Emathia, sprung from its very soil. He had nine daughters. They were the ones who formed a choir in opposition to the Muses. And there was a musical contest in Helicon.

Whenever the daughters of Pierus began to sing, all creation went dark and no one would give an ear to their choral performance. But when the Muses sang, heaven, the stars, the sea and rivers stood still, while Mount Helicon, beguiled by the pleasure of it all, swelled skywards tilI, by the will of Poseidon, Pegasus checked it by striking the summit with his hoof.

Since these mortals had taken upon themselves to strive with goddesses, the Muses changed them into nine birds. To this day people refer to them as the grebe, the wryneck, the ortolan, the jay, the greenfinch, the goldfinch, the duck, the woodpecker and the dracontis pigeon.

Notes

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References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Pierides (mythology)

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In , the Pierides were nine sisters, daughters of Pierus, a of Emathia in Macedon, and his Euippe (also called Paeonian Euippe or Antiope in variant accounts). Renowned for their vocal talents and swollen with pride over matching the Muses in number, they journeyed through Achaia and Haemonia to challenge the goddesses to a contest on , proposing the Heliconian springs or the Emathian plains as stakes. Defeated by the Muses and responding with abuse, the Pierides were punished by transformation into —chattering birds that retained their loquacious nature as a mocking reminder of their former eloquence. The myth of the Pierides' hubris and downfall is most fully detailed in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 5), where the Muse narrates the event to amid broader tales of divine contests and . The sisters, born with the invocation of the goddess Lucina nine times during their mother's labor, arrived at Helicon with overconfidence, demanding a competition judged impartially by local nymphs seated on rocky platforms. The eldest Pierid opened with a blasphemous recounting the Gigantomachy, in which she claimed the gods fled in terror from the giant Typhoeus, disguising themselves as animals— as a ram, Apollo as a crow, and others similarly—to hide in . In response, , chief of the Muses, sang of the abduction of by , a of divine sorrow and the origins of the seasons. The nymphs unanimously awarded victory to the Muses, but the Pierides' subsequent insults and attempted assault prompted the goddesses' wrath: feathers sprouted from their fingers, their mouths hardened into beaks, and they were lifted into the air as , forever destined to fill the woods with raucous chatter. Earlier Greek traditions vary in details, with some sources attributing the establishment of the nine Muses themselves to Pierus, suggesting he named them after his daughters or that the sisters bore the Muses' names (such as and ). In Pausanias' account, Pierus is credited with introducing the cult of the nine Muses at in , possibly drawing from Thracian lore, though he does not describe a contest. Other variants, like that in Antoninus Liberalis' (based on ), refer to the sisters as Emathides and depict their transformation into a variety of birds, including grebes, rather than solely , emphasizing diverse avian punishments for their presumption. briefly alludes to the Pierides as rivals to the Muses in a philosophical discussion of divine origins. These accounts collectively underscore themes of hybris (arrogance) against the divine order of inspiration and art, positioning the Pierides as cautionary figures in the mythology of creative patronage.

Terminology

Pierides as Epithet for the Muses

The term "Pierides" serves as an ancient epithet for the nine Muses, the Greek goddesses of , , and , deriving from Pieria, a coastal region in Macedonia at the foot of where they were mythologically believed to have originated and resided. This geographical association underscores their role as inspirers of poetic and artistic creation, linking the divine figures to the sacred landscapes of . In Hesiod's (c. 700 BCE), the earliest detailed account of the Muses' genealogy, they are explicitly described as being born in Pieria to and , the Titaness of memory: "Them in Pieria did ... bear of union with the father, the son of Cronos" (lines 53–54). This text establishes the Pierides as dwellers near Olympus, delighting in song and dance amid beautiful homes and sacred groves. Later, the lyric poet (c. 518–438 BCE) invokes them as the "Pierian Muses with their lovely voices" in his Isthmian Ode 1 (line 65), portraying them as bearers of glory through poetry and victory celebrations. Such usages in Archaic highlight the epithet's prominence in invoking divine inspiration for epic and choral works. The , located in this region, emerged in ancient tradition as a sacred site emblematic of artistic and enlightenment, symbolizing the wellspring of knowledge in poetry, , and sciences. Though not directly named in , its association with the Muses' Pierian homeland reinforced their cultic ties to natural sources of creativity, where poets sought purification and vision before composition. Unlike other epithets such as "Olympiades," which emphasized their divine parentage from and residence on , or "Heliconiades," referencing their dances and haunts on in , "Pierides" specifically evoked their Thracian-Macedonian origins and role as primordial inspirers tied to the earth's fertile slopes. This distinction preserved the Muses' multifaceted identities across Greek sacred geography, with "Pierides" denoting their foundational, earthy patronage of the arts. The epithet's primary application to the goddesses later extended secondarily to a group of mortal sisters who presumed to rival them in song.

Pierides Referring to the Sisters

In , the Pierides denote the nine mortal sisters who, driven by arrogance, presumed to rival the divine Muses in a contest of song and poetry. Originating from Paeonia, a region associated with , these sisters traveled to challenge the goddesses, boasting of their own talents in . Their hubris stemmed from a misguided confidence in their abilities, positioning them as presumptuous interlopers in the domain of the immortal Muses. These sisters are alternatively known as the Emathides, a name derived from Emathia, another designation for their Macedonian homeland near . This underscores their regional ties and serves to distinguish their mortal identity within the . In their narrative role, the Pierides embody the theme of overreaching ambition, initiating a confrontation that highlights the supremacy of over human pretension, though the outcome of their challenge remains beyond this definitional scope. Ancient authors, including in his (Book 5) and Antoninus Liberalis in his Metamorphoses (Tale 9), deliberately apply the term "Pierides" to these mortal figures as a foil to the Muses, who had previously claimed the name from their Pierian origins. This usage creates a deliberate contrast, emphasizing the sisters' folly in appropriating a title linked to sacred inspiration.

Names and Family

Parentage and Origins

In , the Pierides were the nine daughters of Pierus, a mortal king associated with the region of Emathia in Macedonia. According to Pausanias, Pierus was a Macedonian who named a mountain in Macedonia after himself, thereby linking his lineage to the Pierian territory sacred to the Muses. This geographical connection underscores the Pierides' mortal origins in a land bordering the divine domains of the goddesses they would later challenge, heightening the thematic irony in their story. Variations in ancient accounts place Pierus' rule in adjacent areas, such as or Paeonia, reflecting the fluid boundaries of northern Greek regions in mythological geography. describes Pierus as a wealthy landowner in , a key city in Macedonian Pieria, emphasizing his prosperity and ties to the fertile lowlands near . The mother of the Pierides is identified primarily as Euippe, a woman from Paeonia, though some sources name her Antiope, a figure connected to Pieria itself. specifies Antiope as the consort of Pierus, resulting in nine daughters who bore names akin to those of the Muses. confirms Euippe's Paeonian heritage, portraying her as invoking the goddess Lucina nine times during the births, symbolizing the laborious mortal contrast to the divine ease of the Muses' origins. While Pierus is occasionally credited with other offspring, such as sons in broader Macedonian genealogies, the myth emphasizes his nine daughters as a cohesive group, mirroring the number of the Muses to amplify their presumptuous rivalry.

Individual Names

In some ancient accounts, such as those by Pausanias and Cicero, the Pierides bore the same names as the Muses themselves—Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania—highlighting their hubris in imitating the goddesses. In Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 5), the nine sisters who challenge the Muses are consistently referred to collectively as the Pierides, with no individual names provided, emphasizing their unified hubris as a group rather than distinct personalities. The most detailed naming of the sisters appears in Antoninus Liberalis' Metamorphoses (Tale 9), which draws from the lost work of Nicander of Colophon. Here, the nine daughters of Pierus are identified as follows, with their names evoking the birds into which they are later transformed, showcasing etymological wordplay common in Greek mythological narratives:
  • Acalanthis: Associated with the goldfinch (acalanthis in Greek, denoting a small songbird).
  • Cenchris: Linked to a type of grebe or water bird (cenchris, a term for diving birds).
  • Chloris: Connected to the greenfinch (chloris, from chloros meaning green).
  • Cissa: Related to the jay (cissa, a name for the Eurasian jay).
  • Colymbas: Tied to the dove or wood-pigeon (colymbas, referring to diving or water birds).
  • Dracontis: Associated with the dragon-bird or a serpentine bird form (dracontis, evoking draconic imagery in avian context).
  • Iynx: Directly named after the wryneck bird (iynx), used in love magic and known for its twisting neck.
  • Nessa: Linked to the lapwing or plover (nessa, possibly from a regional bird term).
  • Pipo: Connected to the hoopoe (pipo, onomatopoeic for the bird's call).
These names are unique to Antoninus Liberalis' version and underscore the thematic connection between the sisters' identities and their punitive metamorphoses into birds, a motif absent in other accounts. In contrast, Pausanias in his (9.29.2–3) alludes to the contest between the Muses and Pierus' daughters but provides no individual names, treating them as an anonymous collective defeated for their presumption. This scarcity of naming in sources beyond Antoninus highlights the exceptional nature of his catalog, likely derived from Hellenistic poetic traditions like Nicander's now-fragmentary Heteroeumenoi.

Mythology

Ovid's Account

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 5, the contest between the Pierides and the Muses unfolds on , where the goddess visits the nine Muses while they draw water from the Aganippe spring and fountain to purify themselves after recounting tales of divine conflicts. The Pierides, nine daughters of the mortal king Pierus of in Emathia (Macedonia) and his wife Euippe, arrive boastfully, swollen with pride over their equal number to the Muses, demanding a singing competition to settle supremacy in the arts. They propose high stakes: if the Pierides prevail, the Muses must relinquish Helicon; if the Muses win, the Pierides will abandon the Emathian plains forever, with impartial nymphs serving as judges. The Pierides sing first, delivering a hubristic and ode that mocks the gods by recounting the Gigantomachy with a bias toward the giants' near-victory, emphasizing Typhoeus () as a monstrous force who hurls mountains and spews ash, driving the Olympians into panicked flight across the world. In vivid, derisive detail, describes the gods' humiliating disguises in — as a ram, as a crow, Diana as a cat, and others as lowly animals—to evade the giants, portraying divine power as fragile and the Thracian earth as nearly triumphant, thereby celebrating their regional origins while scorning celestial authority. This song's bombastic tone and sacrilegious content underscore the Pierides' arrogance, blending epic grandeur with satirical bite to challenge the Muses' sacred domain. In response, , the of and eldest of the sisters, represents the Muses by singing a harmonious and reverent narrative of Ceres and her daughter , weaving a tale of maternal grief, divine abduction, and seasonal renewal. Ovid's depiction is lush with poetic imagery: Ceres' anguished search across barren lands, her transformation into a sailor's , the Arethusa's tearful account of 's by Dis in Sicily's fields of , and the eventual compromise allowing to alternate realms, symbolizing the earth's fertility cycles through metaphors of blooming flowers, withering harvests, and Jupiter's mediating decree. This extended song (lines 332–641) contrasts sharply with the Pierides' mockery, employing elegant meter, emotional depth, and mythological cohesion to affirm the Muses' artistic superiority and piety. The nymphs of the springs, along with the sisterhood of mountains and rivers who witness the performance, unanimously Calliope's superior for its grace and truth, declaring the Muses the victors amid applause from the natural world. Enraged by their defeat, the Pierides hurl insults at the judges and Muses, their sealing an immediate that punishes their presumption—though the precise form of this chastisement follows in the broader metamorphic theme. Throughout lines 294–678, Ovid's style elevates the episode through sensory vividness, such as the "clash of arms" in the giants' war or the "" of Ceres, blending lyric competition with epic scope to explore themes of artistic rivalry and mortal overreach.

Antoninus Liberalis' Account

Antoninus Liberalis, a Greek of the 2nd century AD, compiled the , a collection of 41 transformation stories derived primarily from earlier Hellenistic sources such as the poet of Colophon. His account of the Pierides appears in tale 9 ( 9), explicitly attributed to the fourth book of Nicander's own , providing a fragmented Greek variant of the myth that predates and influences later Roman retellings. In this version, the narrative opens with the origins of the Muses: consorted with in the region of Pieria, fathering nine daughters there who became the celebrated Muses. Pierus, king of Emathia in Macedonia, also had nine daughters, equal in number to the Muses but lacking their divine artistic talents; the sisters boldly challenged the Muses to a singing contest on , an act of profound against the immortals. The competition unfolded on Helicon before an audience of gods, mortals, nymphs, and local deities, underscoring the public nature of the confrontation. The Pierides performed first, their song centered on the Gigantomachy—the war between the gods and the earth-born giants—portraying the rebels' audacious attempt to pile mountains like atop Ossa to storm Olympus, yet their verses cast a somber pall over creation and failed to captivate the listeners, who largely disregarded them. The Muses responded with a majestic cosmogonic hymn, led by , which recounted the world's genesis from chaos, the birth and of the gods, the forging of divine weapons, and the ultimate triumph of the Olympians over the Titans and giants, evoking universal awe: the heavens, stars, and sea fell silent, rivers ceased flowing, winds halted, and even swelled upward in ecstasy until struck its peak with his hoof to restrain it. The verdict came swiftly by consensus of the assembled gods and mortals, affirming the Muses' victory through the evident superiority and truthfulness of their performance over the Pierides' flawed and presumptuous one. This Greek telling places greater emphasis on the precise locale of —sacred to the Muses—as the site of , and on the cosmic harmony induced by their song, serving as a prelude to the sisters' ; it contrasts with Ovid's more concise integration of the myth into his epic by preserving earlier, diverse thematic elements from .

Transformation and Significance

Description of the Metamorphoses

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the nine Pierides suffer a swift and collective transformation into magpies (picae) immediately following their defeat and subsequent insults to the Muses, serving as direct agents of the punishment without intervention from higher deities such as Zeus. As the sisters attempt to retort with loud abuse and raise their hands in aggressive gestures, they witness feathers sprouting from beneath their nails, their arms enveloping in plumage, and each other's faces hardening into rigid beaks, compelling them to become novel birds invading the woodlands (Metamorphoses 5.671–678). In their final human moment, as they seek to strike their breasts in lamentation, the motion of their transforming limbs lifts them airborne, condemning them as the chattering mockers of the groves. The preserves elements of their former selves while perverting their defining traits: the sisters retain their innate , now manifested as hoarse garrulity and an insatiable drive for speech, dooming them to perpetual, noisy flight through the trees. This alteration underscores a loss of true articulate expression, reducing their once-competitive song to incessant, meaningless avian clamor. Mythographically, the Pierides' fate exemplifies nemesis as retribution for hybris in the realm of artistic contest, illustrating the perils of mortal presumption against divine superiority in poetry and song. The Muses' unmediated role emphasizes enacted by the victors themselves, reinforcing themes of in creative rivalry.

Variations and Symbolism

In the account preserved by Antoninus Liberalis in his , drawing from the earlier work of , the transformation of the Pierides diverges significantly from the unified punishment in , with each sister metamorphosed into a distinct that echoes her name and possibly her demeanor or song during the contest: Acalanthis into a goldfinch (Acalanthis), Colymbas into a (Colymbas), into a (Iynx), Cenchris into a (Cenchris), Cissa into a (Cissa), Chloris into a greenfinch (), Nessa into a (), Pipo into an (Pipo), and Dracontis into a dracontis pigeon (Dracontis). These individualized curses underscore a tailored retribution, where the birds' traits—such as the wryneck's association with incantations or the jay's raucous calls—may symbolize the sisters' specific hubristic expressions in challenging divine artistry. Other ancient sources offer briefer or rationalized variants without detailed transformations. Pausanias notes the Pierides' existence and equates their names to those of the Muses but attributes no metamorphosis, treating them as historical figures tied to local Macedonian legends rather than mythical birds. Similarly, Hyginus in his Fabulae recounts a contest akin to Ovid's, resulting in the sisters' collective change into magpies, but omits individual identities or bird specifics, emphasizing the generic penalty for their defeat. The myth's symbolism centers on the perils of hybris in Greek and Roman ethics, portraying the Pierides' challenge as an overreach that disrupts the natural order of inspiration, where mortal pretensions to divine creativity invite through debasement into chattering birds—emblems of superficial noise contrasting the Muses' profound, harmonious song. This cautionary narrative reinforces the sanctity of artistic domains reserved for the gods, with the avian forms evoking endless, idle prattle as eternal punishment for aspiring beyond one's station. In modern interpretations, resonates in allegories of artistic rivalry, as seen in works like Rosso Fiorentino's The Contest of the Pierides (ca. 1528), which dramatizes the sisters' to exalt true poetic over vain .
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