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POLYMYA. Polyhymnia, daughter of Zeus and Mnesmosyne, lived with her eight sisters on Mount Helicon. She was the Muse of mime, rhetoric, and song. Fulgentius makes her the Muse of memory, her mother's attribute, Mythologies I.15.

Chaucer invokes Polymya, who "singest with vois memorial in the shade," Anel 15-21, a stanza inspired by Boccaccio, Tes XI.62-63, and by Dante, Par XXIII.56-58.

The form, a variant of medieval Latin Polymia from classical Latin Polyhymnia or "many hymns," appears in final rhyming position, Anel 15.

Boccaccio, Tutte le opere, ed. V. Branca, II: 624-625; Dante, The Divine Comedy, ed. and trans. C.S. Singleton, III.1: 260-261; Fulgentius, Fulgentius the Mythographer, trans. L.G. Whitbread, 56-57.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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