Thomas Taylor – as musas

The Muses  , considered according to their subsistence in Apollo, belong to the intellectual order, and are therefore superior to time. But if time is supposed to have had a beginning, then the Muses, according to their mundane subsistence, had no existence prior to the generation of time. To say, therefore, that the Muses did not once exist, is equivalent to the assertion that the intellectual is prior to the mundane order of them, according to nature, order, dignity, and causality. (Plotino - Tratado 45,10 (III, 7, 10) — Tempo como acompanhamento do movimento)