Nature of Relationship: The muses appeared to Hesiod while he was tending his lambs, giving him a laurel staff and imbuing him with a poet’s voice.
“We start then, with the Muses, who delight / With song the mighty mind of father Zeus / Within Olympus, telling of things that are, / That will be, and that were, with voices joined / In harmony.” (Lines 39–43)
Nature of Relationship: Dante first saw Beatrice in 1274, when they were both nine. They met infrequently, before Beatrice married someone else in 1287 and died three years later.
“It is you who, on no matter what the path, / have drawn me forth from servitude to freedom / by every means that you had in your power.” (Paradiso Canto XXXI)
Nature of Relationship: During composition, Milton believed he was inspired in the same way that the biblical writers were.
“Celestial light / Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers / Irradiate: there plant eyes, all mist from thence / Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight.” (Book III, lines 51–55)
Nature of Relationship: In 1845 Robert wrote to Elizabeth, praising her poetry, and the two soon fell in love. She wrote the sonnets during the twenty-one-month courtship with Robert.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” (Sonnet XLIII)
Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, Geneviève Laporte, and Jacqueline Roque
Inspired: Pablo Picasso
Works:Woman with Pears (1909) and La Femme-Fleur (1946), among others
Nature of Relationship: His affairs with women were often tempestuous; he enjoyed when his mistresses fought over him.
“There are only two types of women: goddesses and doormats.”
Nature of Relationship: Clapton wrote “Layla” as a plea for Boyd to divorce Harrison and marry him instead, which she did in 1979; Harrison and Clapton remained friends.
“Let’s make the best of the situation / Before I finally go insane. / Please don’t say we’ll never find a way / And tell me all my love’s in vain.” (“Layla”)
