Who is the Egyptian goddess of love, beauty, and music?

The story behind the answer

Hathor is the Egyptian goddess of love, beauty, music, joy, and dance—often shown as a woman with cow horns and a sun disk or as a cow. She patroned musicians (the sistrum rattle is her symbol) and had a major cult center at Dendera. Her name can mean “House of Horus,” and she also welcomed the dead into the afterlife.

To distinguish the options: Isis is chiefly a goddess of magic and motherhood; Bastet protects home and fertility as a cat goddess; Sekhmet is a lioness of war and plague. Memory tip: Hathor = heart and harmony—think “heart-throbbing music” and the sistrum’s joyful rattle.