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# The myth of princesses punished for doubting the Muses' talents, and the role of Zeus
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/deviat-docherei-tsaria-pierosa-iz-makedonii-prevrashchaiutsia-v-ptits-posle-togo-kak-proigrali-v-pesennom-sostiazanii-s-muzami/
- Published: 2025-09-03T20:21:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:36:27.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, Observations, Humour

The Nine Daughters of King Pierus of Macedonia Are Turned into Birds After Losing a Singing Contest to the Muses.

A textbook case of the punishment not fitting the offence: so they doubted the talents of the Muses, what of it? The Muses, incidentally, might have refrained from swaggering about and from taking such cruel revenge on innocent princesses, and asserted their superiority in some more seemly fashion. Yet another myth in which pride, vanity and caprice are passed off as virtues.

Who is Zeus? A high-ranking official of sorts, who rose to power by dubious means, holds on to it by decidedly unsavoury methods, shamelessly abuses his immunity, and with each new exploit sinks ever deeper into debauchery, immorality and lawlessness. Who are the Muses? Nine vacuous daughters of Zeus who have usurped the lucrative and undemanding posts of patronesses of the arts, in effect doing nothing themselves and merely demanding kickbacks, in the form of sacrifices, from every production worth the name.

And then, if you please, along come some clever and beautiful girls who put those talents in doubt, which is to say the competence of persons nobody elected, who have achieved nothing, and who were appointed to their posts by the self-serving will of a father not of the most worthy sort. And what happens next? Quite right: first an unequal contest before a venal jury, with no institution of the bar and no fair trial, and then the stripping of all rights, public ridicule and, of course, dehumanisation.

Well, I never! How dare they!