Page "Thamyris" Paragraph 2

This allusion is taken up in Euripides ' Rhesus, in the Library attributed to Apollodorus, and in the Scholia on the Iliad.

These later sources add the details that Thamyris had claimed as his prize, if he should win the contest, the privilege of having sex with all the Muses ( according to one version ) or of marrying one of them ( according to another ); and that after his death he was further punished in Hades.

The story demonstrates that poetic inspiration, a gift of the gods, can be taken away by the gods.