Editing Siren (mythology) (section)

=== Sirens and death===
[[File:Mosaïque d'Ulysse et les sirènes.jpg|thumb|Odysseus and the Sirens, Roman mosaic, second century AD ([[Bardo National Museum (Tunis)|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 "[[wikt:siren song|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 "[[Keres (mythology)|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,{{blockquote|Once he hears to his heart's content, sails on, a wiser man.<br />We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured<br />on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so—<br />all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!<ref>''Odyssey'' 12.188–91, Fagles' translation.</ref>}}

"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>