Terpsichore is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying the dancers' choirs with her music. Her name comes from the Greek words τέρπω ("delight") and χoρός ("dance").
When The Histories of Herodotus were divided by later editors into nine books, each book was named after a Muse. Terpsichore was the name of the fifth book.
Terpsichore is also found in François Couperin's "Second Ordre" from the Pièces de clavecin.
The third version (HWV 8c) of Handel's opera Il pastor fido (1712) includes a new prologue written in 1734 titled Terpsicore.
The eighteenth century French dancer and courtesan Marie-Madeleine Guimard named the private theater in her private palace (1766) the Temple of Terpsichore.
Media
In the 1947 film Down To Earth, Rita Hayworth plays Terpsichore, who is annoyed and visits Earth to change a musical that depicts her in a bad light.[5]
In the 1980 film Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John plays Kira, the main love interest of the film's protagonist, Sonny. It is eventually revealed that Kira is actually Terpsichore in disguise sent to inspire the creation of Xanadu, a legendary nightclub. She is forbidden from falling in love with mortals, so once the nightclub is set to open, she departs Earth having fulfilled her duty. However, she successfully convinces her father, Zeus, to allow her and her eight sisters, the Muses, to perform at the nightclub for its opening night. Once the exciting performance concludes, they disappear in bursts of light. The ending of the film is somewhat ambiguous, as Sonny finally meets a different woman in the club who looks exactly like Kira, implying that Zeus may have allowed her to live as a mortal with Sonny, while all the other Muses returned home to Mount Helicon.
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