In
Greek mythology, the sirens (
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
: singular: ; plural: ) were humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
in which
Odysseus saves his crew's lives. Roman poets placed them on some small islands called
Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island of
Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, is fixed: sometimes on
Cape Pelorum
Faro Point (Italian ''Punta del Faro'') is the northeastern promontory of Sicily situated in Messina district at northeast of the city.
The village is connected to the city center by two ATM bus lines: line 32 (Ponte Gallo - Mortelle - Terminal Mu ...
and at others in the islands known as the
Sirenuse
The Sirenusas ( it, Le Sirenuse), also known as the Gallos (', "the Cocks"), are an archipelago of little islands off the Amalfi Coast of Italy between Isle of Capri and southwest of Province of Salerno's Positano, to which it is administrative ...
, near
Paestum, or in
Capreae. All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks.
Sirens continued to be used as a symbol for the dangerous temptation embodied by women regularly throughout Christian art of the medieval era.
Nomenclature
The etymology of the name is contested.
Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a
Pre-Greek origin. Others connect the name to σειρά (''seirá'', "rope, cord") and εἴρω (''eírō'', "to tie, join, fasten"), resulting in the meaning "binder, entangler", i.e. one who binds or entangles through magic song. This could be connected to the famous scene of
Odysseus being bound to the
mast
Mast, MAST or MASt may refer to:
Engineering
* Mast (sailing), a vertical spar on a sailing ship
* Flagmast, a pole for flying a flag
* Guyed mast, a structure supported by guy-wires
* Mooring mast, a structure for docking an airship
* Radio mas ...
of his ship, in order to resist their song.
Sirens were later often used as a synonym for
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are sometimes asso ...
s, and portrayed with upper human bodies and fish tails. This combination became iconic in the medieval period.
The circumstances leading to the commingling involve the treatment of sirens in the medieval ''
Physiologus'' and bestiaries, both iconographically, as well as textually in translations from Latin to vulgar languages, as described below.
Iconography
Classical iconography
The sirens of Greek mythology first appeared in
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
,'' where Homer did not provide any physical descriptions, and their visual appearance was left to the readers' imagination. It was
Apollonius of Rhodes in ''
Argonautica'' (3rd century BC) who described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird.
By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds. They may have been influenced by the
ba-bird of Egyptian religion. In early Greek art, the sirens were generally represented as large birds with women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later depictions shifted to show sirens with human upper bodies and bird legs, with or without wings. They were often shown playing a variety of musical instruments, especially the
lyre,
kithara, and
aulos.
The tenth-century Byzantine dictionary ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...
'' stated that sirens ( el, Σειρῆνας) had the form of
sparrows
Sparrow may refer to:
Birds
* Old World sparrows, family Passeridae
* New World sparrows, family Passerellidae
* two species in the Passerine family Estrildidae:
** Java sparrow
** Timor sparrow
* Hedge sparrow, also known as the dunnock or he ...
from their chests up, and below they were women or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women's faces.
Originally, sirens were shown as male or female, but the male siren disappeared from art around the fifth century BC.
Early siren-mermaids
Some surviving Classical period examples had already depicted the siren as mermaid-like.
The sirens are depicted as mermaids or "tritonesses" in examples dating to the 3rd century BC, including an earthenware bowl found in Athens and a terracotta oil lamp possibly from the Roman period.
The first known literary attestation of siren as a "mermaid" appeared in the Anglo-Latin catalogue ''
Liber Monstrorum'' (early 8th century AD), where it says that sirens were "sea-girls... with the body of a maiden, but have scaly fishes' tails".
Medieval Iconography
As will be explained below, the siren appeared in a number of illustrated manuscripts of the ''
Physiologus'' and its successors called the
bestiaries. The siren was depicted as a half-woman and half-fish mermaid in the 9th century Berne ''Physiologus'', as an early example, but continued to be illustrated with both bird-like parts (wings, clawed feet) and fish-like tail.
Modern paintings
Classical literature
Family tree
Although a
Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or c ...
fragment makes
Phorcys
In Greek mythology, Phorcys or Phorcus (; grc, Φόρκυς) is a primordial sea god, generally cited (first in Hesiod) as the son of Pontus and Gaia (Earth). Classical scholar Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereu ...
their father, when sirens are named, they are usually as daughters of the river god
Achelous, either by the
Muse
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in ...
Terpsichore,
Melpomene or
Calliope or lastly by
Sterope Sterope (; Ancient Greek: Στερόπη, , from , ''steropē'', lightning) was the name of several individuals in Greek mythology:
* Sterope (or Asterope), one of the Pleiades and the wife of Oenomaus (or his mother by Ares).
* Sterope, a Pl ...
, daughter of King
Porthaon of
Calydon
Calydon (; grc, Καλυδών, ) was a Greek city in ancient Aetolia, situated on the west bank of the river Evenus, 7.5 Roman miles (approx. 11 km) from the sea.
Its name is most famous today for the Calydonian boar that had to be o ...
.
[Apollodorus, 1.7.10]
In
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars ...
's play ''
Helen
Helen may refer to:
People
* Helen of Troy, in Greek mythology, the most beautiful woman in the world
* Helen (actress) (born 1938), Indian actress
* Helen (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
Places
* Helen, ...
'' (167), Helen in her anguish calls upon "Winged maidens, daughters of the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
(
Chthon)." Although they lured mariners, the Greeks portrayed the sirens in their "meadow starred with flowers" and not as sea deities.
Epimenides
Epimenides of Cnossos (or Epimenides of Crete) (; grc-gre, Ἐπιμενίδης) was a semi-mythical 7th or 6th century BC Greek seer and philosopher- poet, from Knossos or Phaistos.
Life
While tending his father's sheep, Epimenides is s ...
claimed that the sirens were children of
Oceanus and
Ge. Sirens are found in many Greek stories, notably in Homer's ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
''.
List of sirens
Their number is variously reported as from two to eight. In the ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
'',
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
says nothing of their origin or names, but gives the number of the sirens as two. Later writers mention both their names and number: some state that there were three,
Peisinoe,
Aglaope and
ThelxiepeiaApollodorus
Apollodorus (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to:
:''Note: A f ...
, Epitomebr>7.18
Tzetzes on Lycophron, 7l2 or
Aglaonoe
In Greek mythology, Aglaonoe ( Ancient Greek: Αγλαονόη) was one of the Sirens. She was the daughter of the river-god Achelous and the Muse Terpsichore. Her sisters were Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia.Tzetzes, ''Chiliades'' 6.40
Note
Ref ...
,
Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia;
Parthenope,
Ligeia
"Ligeia" () is an early short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. The story follows an unnamed narrator and his wife Ligeia, a beautiful and intelligent raven-haired woman. She falls ill, composes "The Conqueror Wor ...
, and
Leucosia;
Apollonius followed
Hesiod gives their names as
Thelxinoe,
Molpe, and
Aglaophonos;
Suidas gives their names as Thelxiepeia, Peisinoe, and Ligeia;
Hyginus gives the number of the sirens as four: Teles,
Raidne, Molpe, and
Thelxiope
''Thelxiope'' is a genus of Cambrian and Ordovician arthropod. Four named species are known, the type species ''T. palaeothalassia'' is known from the Burgess Shale, Canada ''T. holmani'' is from the Wheeler Shale of Utah, ''Thelxiope tangi'' fro ...
;
Eustathius states that they were two, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia;
[Eustathius on ]Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
1709 an ancient
vase painting
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
attests the two names as
Himerope and Thelxiepeia.
Their individual names are variously rendered in the later sources as Thelxiepeia/Thelxiope/Thelxinoe, Molpe, Himerope, Aglaophonos/Aglaope/Aglaopheme, Pisinoe/Peisinoë/
Peisithoe, Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia, Raidne, and Teles.
*Molpe ()
*Thelxiepeia () or Thelxiope () "eye pleasing")
Mythology
Demeter
According to
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...
(43 BC–17 AD), the sirens were the companions of young
Persephone
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone ( ; gr, Περσεφόνη, Persephónē), also called Kore or Cora ( ; gr, Κόρη, Kórē, the maiden), is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld aft ...
.
Demeter gave them wings to search for Persephone when she was abducted by
Hades. However, the ''Fabulae'' of
Hyginus (64 BC–17 AD) has Demeter cursing the sirens for failing to intervene in the abduction of Persephone. According to
Hyginus, Sirens were fated to live only until the mortals who heard their songs were able to pass by them.
The Muses
One legend says that
Hera, queen of the gods, persuaded the sirens to enter a singing contest with the
Muses. The Muses won the competition and then plucked out all of the sirens' feathers and made crowns out of them.
[Lemprière 768.] Out of their anguish from losing the competition, writes
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium ( la, Stephanus Byzantinus; grc-gre, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD), was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethn ...
, the sirens turned white and fell into the sea at
Aptera ("featherless"), where they formed the islands in the bay that were called ''Leukai'' ("the white ones", modern
Souda).
''Argonautica''
In the ''
Argonautica'' (third century BC),
Jason had been warned by
Chiron that
Orpheus would be necessary in his journey. When Orpheus heard their voices, he drew out his
lyre and played his music more beautifully than they, drowning out their voices. One of the crew, however, the sharp-eared hero
Butes, heard the song and leapt into the sea, but he was caught up and carried safely away by the goddess
Aphrodite
Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols incl ...
.
[Apollonius Rhodius, ''Argonautica'' IV, 891–919. Seaton, R. C. ed., tr. (2012)]
p. 354ff
''Odyssey''
Odysseus was curious as to what the sirens sang to him, and so, on the advice of
Circe, he had all of his sailors plug their ears with
beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered his men to leave him tied tightly to the mast, no matter how much he might beg. When he heard their beautiful song, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they bound him tighter. When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus demonstrated with his frowns to be released. Some post-Homeric authors state that the sirens were fated to die if someone heard their singing and escaped them, and that after Odysseus passed by they therefore flung themselves into the water and perished.
Pliny
The first-century Roman historian
Pliny the Elder discounted sirens as a pure fable, "although Dinon, the father of Clearchus, a celebrated writer, asserts that they exist in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, and that they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces."
Sirens and death
Statues of sirens in a funerary context are attested since the classical era, in mainland
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
, as well as
Asia Minor and
Magna Graecia. The so-called "Siren of Canosa"—
Canosa di Puglia is a site in
Apulia that was part of
Magna Graecia—was said to accompany the dead among
grave goods in a burial. She appeared to have some
psychopomp characteristics, guiding the dead on the afterlife journey. The cast
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terra ...
figure bears traces of its original white pigment. The woman bears the feet, wings and tail of a bird. The sculpture is conserved in the
National Archaeological Museum of Spain
The National Archaeological Museum ( es, Museo Arqueológico Nacional; MAN) is a museum in Madrid, Spain. It is located on Calle de Serrano beside the Plaza de Colón, sharing its building with the National Library of Spain.
History
The museu ...
, in Madrid.
The sirens were called the Muses of the lower world. Classical scholar
Walter Copland Perry (1814–1911) observed: "Their song, though irresistibly sweet, was no less sad than sweet, and lapped both body and soul in a fatal lethargy, the forerunner of death and corruption." Their song is continually calling on Persephone.
The term "
siren song
In Greek mythology, the sirens ( Ancient Greek: singular: ; plural: ) were humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus saves his crew's lives. Roman poets placed them on some small islands call ...
" refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad conclusion. Later writers have implied that the sirens were
cannibals, based on
Circe's description of them "lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones." As linguist
Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar and linguist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Ancient Greek religion and mythology. She ...
(1850–1928) notes of "
The Ker as siren": "It is strange and beautiful that Homer should make the sirens appeal to the spirit, not to the flesh." The siren song is a promise to Odysseus of mantic truths; with a false promise that he will live to tell them, they sing,
"They are mantic creatures like the
Sphinx with whom they have much in common, knowing both the past and the future", Harrison observed. "Their song takes effect at midday, in a windless calm. The end of that song is
death." That the sailors' flesh is rotting away, suggests it has not been eaten. It has been suggested that, with their feathers stolen, their divine nature kept them alive, but unable to provide food for their visitors, who starved to death by refusing to leave.
Early Christian to Medieval
Late antiquity
By the fourth century, when
pagan beliefs were overtaken by
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
,
Saint Jerome, who produced the Latin
Vulgate version of the bible, used the word ''sirens'' to translate Hebrew ''tannīm'' ("
jackals") in the
Book of Isaiah 13:22, and also to translate a word for "
owls" in the
Book of Jeremiah 50:39.
The siren is allegorically described as a beautiful courtesan or prostitute, who sings pleasant melody to men, and is symbolic vice of Pleasure in the preaching of
Clement of Alexandria (2nd century). Later writers such as
Ambrose (4th century) reiterated the notion that the siren stood as symbol or allegory for worldly temptations. and not an endorsement of the Greek myth.
Isidorus
The early Christian
euhemerist interpretation of mythologized human beings received a long-lasting boost from the ''
Etymologiae'' by
Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636):
Physiologus and bestiaries
The allegorical texts
The siren and the
onocentaur, two hybrid creatures, appear as the subject of a single chapter in the ''
Physiologus'', owing to the fact that they appear together in the
Septuagint translation of the aforementioned Isaiah 13:21–22, and 34:14. They also appear together in some Latin bestiaries of the First Family subgroup called B-Isidore ("B-Is").
The miniatures
The siren's bird-like description from classical sources was retained in the Latin version of the ''Physiologus'' (6th century) and a number of subsequent
bestiaries into the 13th century,
but at some time during the interim, the mermaid shape was introduced to this body of works.
;(As woman-fish or mermaid)
The siren was illustrated as a woman-fish (mermaid) in the ''
Bern Physiologus'' dated to the mid 9th century, even though this contradicted the accompanying text which described it as avian. An English-made Latin bestiary dated 1220–1250 also depicted a group of sirens as mermaids with fishtails swimming in the sea, even though the text stated they resembled winged fowl () down to their feet.
Illustrating the siren as a pure mermaid became commonplace in the "second family" bestiaries, and she was shown holding a musical instrument in the classical tradition, but also sometimes holding apparently an
eel-fish. An example of the siren-mermaid holding such a fish is found in one of the earlier codices in this group, dated the late 12th century.
;(As bird-like)
A counterexample is also given where the illustrated sirens (group of three) are bird-like, conforming to the text.
;(As hybrid)
The siren was sometimes drawn as a hybrid with a human torso, a fish-like lower body, and bird-like wings and feet. While in the Harley 3244 (cf. fig. top right) the wings sprout from around the shoulders, in other hybrid types, the style places the siren's wings "hanging at the waist".
;(Comb and mirror)
Also, a siren may be holding a comb, or a mirror.
Thus the comb and mirror, which are now emblematic of mermaids across Europe, derive from the bestiaries that describe the siren as a vain creature requiring those accoutrements.
Verse bestiaries
Later, bestiary texts appeared which were modified to accommodate the artistic conventions.
It is explained that the siren's "other part" may be "like fish or like bird" in
Guillaume le clerc
William the Clerk (french: Guillaume le Clerc) (fl. c. 1200 – c. 1240) was an Old French poet known only from the self-attribution at the end of the Arthurian ''Roman de Fergus'', a parody of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, notably th ...
's
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...
verse bestiary (1210 or 1211), as well as
Philippe de Thaun's Anglo-Norman verse bestiary (c. 1121–1139).
Derivative literature
There also appeared medieval works that conflated sirens with mermaids while citing ''Physiologus'' as their source.
Italian poet
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...
depicts a siren in Canto 19 of ''
Purgatorio'', the second canticle of the ''
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature a ...
''. Here, the pilgrim dreams of a female that is described as "stuttering, cross-eyed, and crooked on her feet, with stunted hands, and pallid in color."
It is not until the pilgrim "gazes" upon her that she is turned desirable and is revealed by herself to be a siren.
This siren then claims that she "turned Ulysses from his course, desirous of my / song, and whoever becomes used to me rarely / leaves me, so wholly do I satisfy him!"
Given that Dante did not have access to the ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
'', the siren's claim that she turned Ulysses from his course is inherently false because the sirens in the ''Odyssey'' do not manage to turn Ulysses from his path.
Ulysses and his men were warned by
Circe and prepared for their encounter by stuffing their ears full of wax,
except for Ulysses, who wishes to be bound to the ship's mast as he wants to hear the siren's song.
Scholars claim that
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ' ...
may have "misinterpreted" the siren's claim from an episode in
Cicero's ''
De finibus
''De finibus bonorum et malorum'' ("On the ends of good and evil") is a Socratic dialogue by the Roman orator, politician, and Academic Skeptic philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. It consists of three dialogues, over five books, in which Cicero d ...
.''
The pilgrim's dream comes to an end when a lady "holy and quick"
who had not yet been present before suddenly appears and says, "O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?"
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
, the pilgrim's guide, then steps forward and tears the clothes from the siren's belly which, "awakened me
he pilgrim
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
with the stench that issued from it."
This marks ending the encounter between the pilgrim and the siren.
In
Geoffrey of Monmouth's ''
Historia Regum Britanniae
''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. ...
'' (),
Brutus of Troy
Brutus, also called Brute of Troy, is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British history as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears in the '' Historia Brittonum'', an anony ...
encounters sirens at the
Pillars of Hercules on his way to Britain to fulfil a prophecy that he will establish an empire there. The sirens surround and nearly overturn his ships, until Brutus escapes to the
Tyrrhenian Sea.
Renaissance
By the time of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
, female court musicians known as
courtesans filled the role of an unmarried companion, and musical performances by unmarried women could be seen as immoral. Seen as a creature who could control a man's reason, female singers became associated with the mythological figure of the siren, who usually took a half-human, half-animal form somewhere on the cusp between nature and culture.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote of them in his notebooks, stating "The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners."
Age of Exploration
However, in the 17th century, some
Jesuit writers began to assert their actual existence, including
Cornelius a Lapide, who said of woman, "her glance is that of the fabled
basilisk
In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk ( or ) is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king, who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the '' Naturalis Historia'' of Pliny the Elder, the basilisk of Cyre ...
, her voice a siren's voice—with her voice she enchants, with her beauty she deprives of reason—voice and sight alike deal destruction and death."
Antonio de Lorea also argued for their existence, and
Athanasius Kircher argued that compartments must have been built for them aboard
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in ...
.
Late Modernity (1801-1900)
Charles Burney expounded , in ''A General History of Music'': "The name, according to
Bochart, who derives it from the Phoenician, implies a ''songstress.'' Hence it is probable, that in ancient times there may have been excellent singers, but of corrupt morals, on the coast of Sicily, who by seducing voyagers, gave rise to this fable."
John Lemprière in his ''Classical Dictionary'' (1827) wrote, "Some suppose that the sirens were a number of lascivious women in Sicily, who prostituted themselves to strangers, and made them forget their pursuits while drowned in unlawful pleasures. The etymology of
Bochart, who deduces the name from a
Phoenician term denoting a ''songstress,'' favors the explanation given of the fable by
Damm. This distinguished critic makes the sirens to have been excellent singers, and divesting the fables respecting them of all their terrific features, he supposes that by the charms of music and song they detained travellers, and made them altogether forgetful of their native land."
In fine art
English artist
William Etty portrayed the sirens as young women in fully human form in his 1837 painting ''
The Sirens and Ulysses
''The Sirens and Ulysses'' is a large oil painting on canvas by the English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1837. It depicts the scene from Homer's ''Odyssey'' in which Odysseus, Ulysses (Odysseus) resists the bewitching song of the ...
'', a practice copied by future artists.
See also
Explanatory notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
* Fowler, R. L. (2013), ''Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary'', Oxford University Press, 2013. .
*
*
* Harrison, Jane Ellen (1922) (3rd ed.) ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.'' London: C.J. Clay and Sons.
*
* Homer, ''The Odyssey''
* Lemprière, John (1827) (6th ed.). ''A Classical Dictionary;....'' New York: Evert Duyckinck, Collins & Co., Collins & Hannay, G. & C. Carvill, and O. A. Roorbach.as mentioned in the scriptures
*
*
Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or c ...
, ''Fragments'', Edited and translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones,
Loeb Classical Library No. 483. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1996.
Online version at Harvard University Press
Further reading
* Siegfried de Rachewiltz, ''De Sirenibus: An Inquiry into Sirens from Homer to Shakespeare'', 1987: chs: "Some notes on posthomeric sirens; Christian sirens; Boccaccio's siren and her legacy; The Sirens' mirror; The siren as emblem the emblem as siren; Shakespeare's siren tears; brief survey of siren scholarship; the siren in folklore; bibliography"
* "Siren's Lament", a story based around one writer's perception of sirens. Though most lore in the story does not match up with lore we associate with the wide onlook of sirens, it does contain useful information.
External links
''The Suda'' (Byzantine Encyclopedia) on the sirensA Mythological Reference by G. Rodney Avant
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