Siren (mythology)

siren in classical Greek funerary statue

Attic funerary statue of a siren, playing on a tortoiseshell lyre, Template:Circa

In Greek mythology, sirens (Template:Langx) are female humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus saves his crew's lives.<ref>Scholiast on Homer, Odyssey 12.168 with Hesiod as the authority, translated by Evelyn-White</ref> Roman poets place them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa,<ref>"We must steer clear of the sirens, their enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers" is Robert Fagles's rendering of Odyssey 12.158–9.</ref> is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.<ref>Strabo i. 22; Eustathius of Thessalonica's Homeric commentaries §1709; Servius I.e.</ref> All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks.

Sirens continued to be used as a symbol of the dangerous temptation embodied by women regularly throughout Christian art of the medieval era. "Siren" can also be used as a slang term for a woman considered both very attractive and dangerous.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nomenclature

File:Greek - Vase in the Form of a Siren - Walters 482020.jpg

Archaic perfume vase in the shape of a siren, Template:Circa

The etymology of the name is contested. Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin.<ref>Robert S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 1316 f.</ref> Others connect the name to σειρά (seirá, "rope, cord") and εἴρω (eírō, "to tie, join, fasten"), resulting in the meaning "binder, entangler",<ref>Cf. the entry in Wiktionary and the entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary.</ref>Template:Better source needed 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 of his ship, to resist their song.<ref>Homer, Odyssey, book 12.</ref>

Sirens were later often used as a synonym for mermaids and portrayed with upper human bodies and fish tails. This combination became iconic in the medieval period.<ref name="harrison"/><ref name="Mittman Dendle 2016 p. 352">Template:Cite book</ref> The circumstances leading to the commingling involve the treatment of sirens in the medieval Physiologus and bestiaries, both iconographically,Template:Sfnp as well as textually in translations from Latin to vulgar languages,Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp as described below.

Iconography

Classical iconography

File:Funerary siren Louvre Myr148.jpg

Moaning siren statuette from Myrina, first century BC

The sirens of Greek mythology first appeared in Homer's Odyssey, 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.Template:Efn<ref name="argonautica-4.891"/><ref name="knight"/> By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds.Template:Sfnp 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The tenth-century Byzantine dictionary Suda stated that sirens (Template:Langx)Template:Efn had the form of sparrows from their chests up, and below they were women or that they were little birds with women's faces.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Originally, sirens were shown as male or female, but the male siren disappeared from art around the fifth century BC.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early siren-mermaids

File:Siren enchants sailors - Bestiary (1230-1240), f.47v - BL Harley MS 4751.jpg

Miniature illustration of a siren enticing sailors who try to resist her, from an English Bestiary, Template:Circa

Some surviving Classical period examples had already depicted the siren as mermaid-like.<ref name="harrison"/> The sirens are described as mermaids or "tritonesses" in examples dating to the 3rd century BC, including an earthenware bowl found in AthensTemplate:RefnTemplate:Refn and a terracotta oil lamp possibly from the Roman period.<ref name="harrison"/>

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".<ref>Template:Harvp, quoting Orchard (1995)'s translation.</ref><ref name="Orchard 2005">Template:Cite web</ref>

Medieval Iconography

The siren appeared in several 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,Template:Refn as an early example, but continued to be illustrated with both bird-like parts (wings, clawed feet) and fish-like tail.Template:Sfnp

Classical literature

Family tree

Template:Void Although a Sophocles fragment makes Phorcys their father,<ref>Sophocles, fragment 861; Fowler, p. 31; Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivales – Symposiacs, Moralia 9.14.6</ref> when sirens are named, they are usually as daughters of the river god Achelous,<ref>Ovid XIV, 88.</ref> either by the Muse Terpsichore,<ref>Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.892; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13.309; Tzetzes, Chiliades, 1.14, line 338 & 348</ref> Melpomene<ref>Apollodorus, Epitome 7.18; Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, 125 & 141; Tzetzes, Chiliades, 1.14, line 339 & 348</ref> or Calliope<ref>Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 5.864</ref> or lastly by Sterope, daughter of King Porthaon of Calydon.<ref name=":12">Apollodorus, 1.7.10</ref>

In Euripides's play Helen (167), Helen in her anguish calls upon "Winged maidens, daughters of the Earth (Chthon)." Although they lured mariners, the Greeks portrayed the sirens in their "meadow starred with flowers" and not as sea deities. Epimenides claimed that the sirens were children of Oceanus and Ge.<ref>Epimenides, fr. 8, suppl = Fowler, p. 13 (2013)</ref> Sirens are found in many Greek stories, notably in Homer's Odyssey. Template:Clear

List of sirens

Their number is variously reported as from two to eight.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the Odyssey, Homer says nothing of their origin or names, but gives the number of the sirens as two.<ref>Homer, Odyssey 12.52</ref> Later writers mention both their names and number: some state that there were three, Peisinoe, Aglaope and Thelxiepeia<ref name=":0">Apollodorus, Epitome 7.18; Tzetzes on Lycophron, 7l2</ref> or Aglaonoe, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia;<ref>Tzetzes, Chiliades 6.40</ref> Parthenope, Ligeia, and Leucosia;<ref>Eustathius, l.c. cit.; Servius on Virgil, Georgics 4.562; Strabo, 5.246, 252; Lycophron, 720–726; Tzetzes, Chiliades 1.14, line 337 & 6.40</ref> Apollonius followed Hesiod gives their names as Thelxinoe, Molpe, and Aglaophonos;<ref>Scholia on Apollonius, 4.892 = Hesiod, Ehoiai fr. 47</ref> the Suda gives their names as Thelxiepeia, Peisinoe, and Ligeia;<ref>Suda, s.v. Seirenas</ref> Hyginus gives the number of the sirens as four: Teles, Raidne, Molpe, and Thelxiope;<ref>Apollodorus, Epitome 7.18; Hyginus, Fabulae Preface p. 30, ed. Bunte</ref> Eustathius states that they were two, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia;<ref name=":2">Eustathius on Homer 1709</ref> an ancient vase painting attests the two names as Himerope and Thelxiepeia.

Their 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.<ref>Linda Phyllis Austern, Inna Naroditskaya, Music of the Sirens, Indiana University Press, 2006, p.18</ref><ref>William Hansen, William F. Hansen, Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans, Oxford University Press, 2005, p.307</ref><ref>Ken Dowden, Niall Livingstone, A Companion to Greek Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, p.353</ref><ref>Mike Dixon-Kennedy, Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology, ABC-Clio, 1998, p.281</ref>

• Molpe (Template:Lang)
• Thelxiepeia (Template:Lang) or Thelxiope (Template:Lang) "eye pleasing")

Comparative table of sirens' names, number and parentage

Relation	Names	Sources
		rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	colspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	colspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	colspan="2" rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header	rowspan="2" Template:Vert header
		Template:Vert header	Template:Vert header	Template:Vert header	Template:Vert header
Parentage	Oceanus and Gaea		✓
	Chthon																		✓
	Achelous and Terpsichore					✓										✓
	Achelous and Melpomene						✓			✓	✓	✓				✓
	Achelous and Sterope									✓
	Achelous and Calliope												✓
	Phorcys				✓
Number	2	✓							✓					✓				✓
	3			✓		✓	✓	✓		✓		✓			✓	✓
	4										✓
Individual name	Thelxinoe or Thelxiope			✓		✓					✓
	Thelxiepe							✓				✓
	Thelxiep(e)ia									✓				✓	✓		✓	✓
	Aglaophonus			✓		✓
	Aglaope							✓		✓
	Aglaopheme													✓			✓
	Aglaonoe																✓
	Molpe			✓		✓					✓	✓
	Peisinoe or Pisinoe							✓		✓		✓			✓
	Parthenope						✓		✓				✓			✓
	Leucosia						✓		✓							✓
	Raidne										✓
	Teles										✓
	Ligeia						✓								✓	✓
	Himerope																	✓

Mythology

Demeter

File:Sirena de Canosa s. IV adC (M.A.N. Madrid) 01.jpg

The Siren of Canosa, statuette exposing psychopomp characteristics, late fourth century BC

According to Ovid (43 BC–17 AD), the sirens were the companions of young Persephone.<ref>Ovid, Metamorphoses V, 551.</ref> 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 could pass by them.<ref>Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 141 (trans. Grant).</ref>

The Muses

In the sanctuary of Hera in Coroneia was a statue created by Pythodorus of Thebes, depicting Hera holding the sirens. According to the myth, Hera persuaded the sirens to challenge the Muses to a singing contest. After the Muses won, they are said to have plucked the sirens' feathers and used them to make crowns for themselves.<ref>Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.34.3</ref><ref name="Lempriere">Lemprière 768.</ref> According to Stephanus of Byzantium, the sirens, overwhelmed by their loss, cast off their feathers from their shoulders, turned white and then threw themselves into the sea. As a result, the nearby city was named Aptera ("featherless") and the nearby islands were called the Leukai ("the white ones").<ref>Caroline M. Galt, "A marble fragment at Mount Holyoke College from the Cretan city of Aptera", Art and Archaeology 6 (1920:150).</ref> John Tzetzes recounts that after defeating the sirens, the Muses crowned themselves with the sirens' wings, except for Terpsichore who was their mother, adding that the city of Aptera named after this event.<ref>Tzetzes, Ad Lycophronem, 653</ref> Furthermore, in one of his letters, Julian the Emperor mentions the Muses' victory over the sirens.<ref>Julian the Emperor, Letters, 74</ref>

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.<ref name="argonautica-4.891">Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica IV, 891–919. Seaton, R. C. ed., tr. (2012), p. 354ff.</ref>

Odyssey

File:Siren Painter ARV 289 1 Odysseus and the Sirens - three erotes (02).jpg

Odysseus and the Sirens, eponymous vase of the Siren Painter, Template:Circa

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.<ref>Odyssey XII, 39.</ref> 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.<ref>Hyginus, Fabulae 141; Lycophron, Alexandra 712 ff.</ref>

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, and that they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces."<ref>Pliny the Elder, Natural History X, 70.</ref>

Sirens and death

File:Mosaïque d'Ulysse et les sirènes.jpg

Odysseus and the Sirens, Roman mosaic, second century AD (Bardo National Museum)

Statues of sirens in a funerary context are attested since the classical era, in mainland Greece, 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 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, 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."<ref>Perry, "The sirens in ancient literature and art", in The Nineteenth Century, reprinted in Choice Literature: a monthly magazine (New York) 2 (September–December 1883:163).</ref> Their song is continually calling on Persephone.

The term "siren song" 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 ate humans, 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."<ref>Odyssey 12.45–6, Fagles' translation.</ref> As linguist Jane Ellen Harrison (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."<ref>Harrison 198</ref> The siren song is a promise to Odysseus of mantic truths; with a false promise that he will live to tell them, they sing,Template:Blockquote

"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."<ref>Harrison, 199.</ref> 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.<ref>Liner notes to Fresh Aire VI by Jim Shey, Classics Department, University of Wisconsin</ref>

Early Christian to Medieval

Book of Enoch

According to the ancient Hebrew Book of Enoch, the women who were led astray by the fallen angels will be turned into sirens.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Late antiquity

By the fourth century, when pagan beliefs were overtaken by Christianity, Template:Dubious-span

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 melodies to men, and is the symbolic vice of Pleasure in the preaching of Clement of Alexandria (2nd century).<ref>Clement. Protrepticus. quoted in Template:Harvp</ref> Later writers such as Ambrose (4th century) reiterated the notion that the siren stood as a symbol or allegory for worldly temptations.<ref>Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 3, chap. 1, 4.</ref> 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): Template:Blockquote

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,Template:Sfnp as they appear together in the Septuagint translation of the aforementioned Isaiah 13:21–22, and 34:14.Template:SfnpTemplate:Refn They also appear together in some Latin bestiaries of the First Family subgroup called B-Isidore ("B-Is").Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

The miniatures

File:Morgan M.81, f.017r-sirene.jpg

Template:Small<ref name="Morgan-M.81"/>

File:Sloane278, fol.47r-sirena&onocentaurus.jpg

Template:Small<ref name="Sloan283"/>

The siren's bird-like description from classical sources was retained in the Latin version of the Physiologus (6th century) and several subsequent bestiaries into the 13th century,<ref>Physiologus "B" text and its derivative. Template:Harvp et sqq.</ref><ref name="mustard" /> but at some time during the interim, the mermaid shape was introduced to this body of works.<ref>Template:Harvp: There were "those who introduced the mermaid into the Latin Physiologus and the bestiaries thence derived".</ref>

As woman-fish or mermaid

Template:Further 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.Template:Refn 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 (Template:Lang) down to their feet.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

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.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp

As bird-like

A counterexample is also given where the illustrated sirens (group of three) are bird-like, conforming to the text.Template:Refn

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.<ref>Harley 3244, and others MSS.; Template:Harvp</ref><ref>Cambridge University Library, MS Ii. 4. 26, fol. 39r. Template:Harvp</ref> 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".Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

Comb and mirror

Also, a siren may be holding a comb,Template:SfnpTemplate:Refn or a mirror.Template:Refn

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.Template:Sfnp<ref name="chunko-dominguez">Template:Cite book</ref>

Verse bestiaries

Later, bestiary texts appeared which were modified to accommodate the artistic conventions.Template:Sfnp

It is explained that the siren's "other part" may be "like fish or like bird" in Guillaume le clerc's Old French verse bestiary (1210 or 1211),Template:RefnTemplate:Sfnp as well as Philippe de Thaun's Anglo-Norman verse bestiary (c. 1121–1139).<ref name="philippe-de-thaun"/>Template:Sfnp

Derivative literature

There also appeared medieval works that conflated sirens with mermaids while citing Physiologus as their source.<ref>Bartholomew Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum XCVII, c.1240, "And Physiologus saith it is a beast of the sea, wonderly shapen as a maid from the navel upward and a fish from the navel downward"; quoted in translation by Template:Harvp</ref>Template:Refn

Italian poet Dante Alighieri depicts a siren in Canto 19 of Purgatorio, the second canticle of the Divine Comedy. Here, the pilgrim dreams of a female who is described as "stuttering, cross-eyed, and crooked on her feet, with stunted hands, and pallid in color."<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> It is not until the pilgrim "gazes" upon her that she is turned desirable and is revealed by herself to be a siren.<ref name=":1" /> 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!"<ref name=":1" /> Given that Dante did not have access to the Odyssey, 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.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite book</ref> Ulysses and his men were warned by Circe and prepared for their encounter by stuffing their ears full of wax,<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref> except for Ulysses, who wishes to be bound to the ship's mast as he wants to hear the siren's song.<ref name=":4" /> Scholars claim that Dante may have "misinterpreted" the siren's claim from an episode in Cicero's De finibus.<ref name=":3" /> The pilgrim's dream comes to an end when a lady "holy and quick"<ref name=":1" /> who had not yet been present before suddenly appears and says, "O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?"<ref name=":1" /> Virgil, the pilgrim's guide, then steps forward and tears the clothes from the siren's belly which, "awakened me [the pilgrim] with the stench that issued from it."<ref name=":1" /> This marks the ending of the encounter between the pilgrim and the siren.

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (Template:Circa), Brutus of Troy 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.<ref name="HRB 1">Template:Cite wikisource</ref>

Renaissance

By the time of the Renaissance, 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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, 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."<ref>Longworth, T. Clifton, and Paul Tice (2003). A Survey of Sex & Celibacy in Religion. San Diego: The Book Tree, 61. Originally published as The Devil a Monk Would Be: A Survey of Sex & Celibacy in Religion (1945).</ref> Antonio de Lorea also argued for their existence, and Athanasius Kircher argued that compartments must have been built for them aboard Noah's Ark.<ref>Carlson, Patricia Ann (ed.) (1986). Literature and Lore of the Sea. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 270.</ref>

Late Modernity (1801–1900)

Charles Burney expounded Template:Circa, 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."<ref>Austern, Linda Phyllis, and Inna Naroditskaya (eds.) (2006). Music of the Sirens. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 72.</ref>

John Lemprière in his Classical Dictionary (1827) wrote, "Some suppose that the sirens were several 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, favours the explanation given of the fable by Damm.<ref>Damm, perhaps Mythologie der Griechen und Römer (ed. Leveiow). Berlin, 1820.</ref> 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."<ref>Lemprière 768. Brackets in the original.</ref>

Arts and influence

The French impressionist composer, Claude Debussy, composed the orchestral work Nocturnes in which the third movement, "Sirènes", depicts sirens. According to Debussy, "'Sirènes' depicts the sea and its countless rhythms and presently, amongst the waves silvered by the moonlight, is heard the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1911, French composer Lili Boulanger composed "Les sirènes" for mezzo-soprano soloist, choir, and piano.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Contemporary British composer and former child prodigy, Alma Deutscher, composed "Waltz of the Sirens", an orchestral work based on the mythology creature.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

English artist William Etty portrayed the sirens as young women in fully human form in his 1837 painting The Sirens and Ulysses, a practice copied by future artists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Citation
• Fowler, R. L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. Template:ISBN.
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Citation
• Harrison, Jane Ellen (1922) (3rd ed.) Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.
• Template:Citation
• 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
• Template:Cite journal
• Sophocles, Fragments, Edited and translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Loeb Classical Library No. 483. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Template:ISBN. 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 sirens
• A Mythological Reference by G. Rodney Avant
• The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Sirens)