Answer:
Writers of epics typically start their poems with an invocation to the Muse.
Step-by-step explanation:
In Greek mythology, there were nine Muses. The Muses were the goddesses of the arts, including poetry. The Muses themselves were skilled in their art and, through it, were able to have mankind forget their troubles. Writers of epic poems, such as Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, would begin their work by invoking the Muse of poetry. They would ask the Muse to inspire them, to give them the necessary knowledge to complete their work. The invocation below was taken from The Odyssey:
“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.
many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.
Even so he could not save his companions, hard though
he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness,
fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God,
and he took away the day of their homecoming. From some point
here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin our story.”