The Muse

I wonder how many poets and other authors claimed to have a 'muse' of their own, or at least a person, real or imagined, who inspires their work.

Dante had Beatrice, with whom he fell in love when he was nine years old and she eight. Horace wrote of Lydia, Petrarch, of sonnet fame, immortalised Laura, and Pasternak's Zhivago Lara. Goethe is supposed to have loved, seduced and abandoned a girl in his youth and was still writing about her years later as Gretchen. I have a feeling the poor girl might have preferred that he make an honest woman of her. But then, poets! They live by different rules, don't we - I mean they.

Shakespeare wrote of his dark lady, whose eyes were nothing like the sun, and the young man of whose eyes Shakespeare felt he could not describe the beauty.

The Roman poet, Catullus, penned these lines to Lesbia - 'I curse her every hour sincerely. Yet, hang me, but I love her dearly.' When I was at school our Latin teacher cunningly mentioned the erotic content of Catullus' work and for a while we studied hard, until we discovered we could getter better and more accessible English material.

And then, of course, there's Mavis. Not too poetic a name to modern sensibilities, and far too much associated with Coronation Street. But it is the good old English name for one of our favourite songbirds. Namely, the thrush. On second thoughts not a poetic name at all.