It’s a word I look up repeatedly as I don’t really use it. I was thinking it meant something to do with the ringing voices of a choir of archangels but it’s actually about dancing. What prompted me this time was the name of a woman who was the the mother of a distant cousin’s husband – she was named Terpsichori and her son Andrew Demetrios Antonatos married a Miss Bayliss in 1925 in Mudgee, New South Wales.
As quite a few other bloggers have done (look them up!) I looked up the meaning of Terpsichore again and found:
“In Greek mythology “Terpsichore” was one of the nine muses and goddess of dance and chorus…”
There is some suggestion that voice might be included as in a chorus or this could more resemble a “corps de ballet”. Anyway it’s an interesting word and a difficult name to pronounce so no wonder it’s sometimes converted to Teresa in Australia. I couldn’t find a Terpsichori Antonatos in the record of Australian deaths and burials, but there was a Teresa.
Terpsichore is usually interpreted by artists as a seated woman dressed in a classical toga with a lyre. She is not dancing but playing music so my interpretation may not be so far off the mark.
As Mr Antonatos was listed in the Electoral Roll as a Confectioner, I looked up Sydney confectioners to see if he was notable, but nothing turned up. There is a family of Antonatos listed in Wikitree in Australia using the surname “Donnes” from the 1830s but Terpsichori’s family was claimed to come from Romania, although the names are clearly Greek. I concluded they were some type of refugee from Greece due to regional,political or religious persecution.
I was going to expand on the word meaning here but it seems to be far too late, so that’s it! Blog done for the day. Ariel??
Up & Down Like the Assyrian Empire! 