<P> According to Hesiod's account (c. 600 BC), generally followed by the writers of antiquity, the Nine Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (i . e . "Memory" personified), figuring as personifications of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music . </P> <P> The Roman scholar Varro (116--27 BC) relates that there are only three Muses: one born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice . They were called Melete or "Practice", Mneme or "Memory" and Aoide or "Song". Three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarch's (46--120 AD) Quaestiones Convivales (9. I4. 2--4). </P> <P> However, the classical understanding of the Muses tripled their triad and established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance . It was not until Hellenistic times that the following systematic set of functions was assigned to them, and even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Urania (astronomy). </P> <P> According to Pausanias in the later second century AD, there were originally three Muses, worshipped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Aoidḗ ("song" or "tune"), Melétē ("practice" or "occasion"), and Mnḗmē ("memory"). Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice . </P>

What are the names of the nine muses