Sirens

Odyssey XII. 36-54; 181-200

Then noble Circe spoke to me. 'All these things are now accomplished. Now listen to the things I tell you, and the god himself will keep you in mind of them. You will come first to the Sirens, who enchant everyone who comes near them. If anyone approaches them without knowing, and hears the voice (phthongos) of the Sirens, for him there will be no wife and little children standing by to gladden his homecoming, but the Sirens enchant him with their clear song. They sit in a meadow, and around them is a great heap of the bones of rotting corpses, their skin withering upon them. Hurry your ship past them: knead some honey-sweet beeswax and put it in your companions' ears, so that none of them can hear. But if you yourself want to hear, let them bind you hand and foot, upright against the mast in your swift ship, with the ropes lashed to the mast itself, so that you may hear and delight in the voice of the two Sirens. And if you plead with your comrades and urge them to release you, they must bind you with more ropes still.'

 

[181] But when we had come within shouting distance of the shore, as we sped along, the Sirens did not fail to notice that a swift ship was coming near, and they began their clear song.

'Come hither, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans. Stop your ship, so that you may hear our voice. No one has ever sailed by this place in a black ship until he has heard the honey-speaking voice that comes from our mouths; and he receives both delight and new knowledge before he goes on. For we know all the sufferings endured by the Greeks and Trojans in broad Troy at the will of the gods, and we know everything that happens upon the fruitful earth.'

So they spoke, sending forth their beautiful voice. My heart longed to listen, and with nods and frowns I urged my comrades to release me. But they leaned forward and rowed on. Perimedes and Eurylochus jumped up and bound me still tighter with more ropes. But when we had passed them by, and we could no longer hear the voice and the song of the Sirens, my trusty companions at once took out the wax with which I had blocked their ears, and loosed me from my bonds.

(Barker 1984: 31-32)

Lucian, De domo 18

"I forbear to say that even those who are present and have been invited to the lecture become spectators instead of hearers when they enter such a hall as this, and no speaker is enough of a Demodocus, a Phemius, a Thamyris, an Amphion or an Orpheus to distract their minds from looking. Why, every one of them is flodded with beauty the instant he crosses the threshold, and does not give the least sign of hearing what the speaker says or anything else, but is all absorbed in what he sees, unless he is stone-blind or like the court of the Areopagus, listens in the dark! That the power of the tongue is no match for the eyes, one can learn by comparing the story of the Sirens with the one about the Gorgons. The Sirens charmed passing voyagers by making music and working on them with songs, and held them long when they put in. In short, their performance only exacted a delay, and no doubt one or another voyager went by them, neglecting their music. On the contrary, the beauty of the Gorgons, being extremely powerful and affecting the very vitals of the soul, stunned its beholders and made them speechless, so that, as the story has it and everyone says, they turned to stone in wonder.

(A. M. Harmon, Lucian, I, Cambridge, Mass.-London: Harvard University Press and Heinemann, 1929: 195-197)

 

Other literary references in:

 

W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, s.v. Seirenen, IV, Hildesheim, Olms 1965 (first edition Leipzig 1916-1924).

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