InGreek mythology,sirens (Ancient Greek: singular:Σειρήν,Seirḗn; plural:Σειρῆνες,Seirênes) are female humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in theOdyssey in whichOdysseus saves his crew's lives.[1] Roman poets place them on some small islands calledSirenum Scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island ofAnthemoessa, or Anthemusa,[2] is fixed: sometimes onCape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as theSirenuse, nearPaestum, or inCapreae.[3] All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks. While some versions have depicted Sirens as woman-headedbirds, other version depict them asmermaids.
Sirens were used in Christian art throughout the medieval era as a symbol of the dangerous temptation embodied by women. "Siren" can also be used as a slang term for a woman considered both very attractive and dangerous.[4]
Archaic perfume vase in the shape of a siren,c. 540 BC
The etymology of the name is contested.Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested aPre-Greek origin.[5] Others connect the name to σειρά (seirá, "rope, cord") and εἴρω (eírō, "to tie, join, fasten"), resulting in the meaning "binder, entangler",[6][better source needed] i.e. one who binds or entangles through magic song. This could be connected to the famous scene ofOdysseus being bound to themast of his ship, to resist their song.[7]
Sirens were later often used as a synonym formermaids and portrayed with upper human bodies and fish tails. This combination became iconic in the medieval period.[8][9] The circumstances leading to the commingling involve the treatment of sirens in the medievalPhysiologus andbestiaries, both iconographically,[10] as well as textually in translations from Latin to vulgar languages,[a][11] as described below.
Moaning siren statuette fromMyrina, first century BC
The sirens of Greek mythology first appeared inHomer'sOdyssey, where Homer did not provide any physical descriptions, and their visual appearance was left to the readers' imagination. By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds.[12]Apollonius of Rhodes inArgonautica (3rd century BC) described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird.[b][13][14] They may have been influenced by theba-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 thelyre,kithara, andaulos.[15]
The tenth-century Byzantine dictionarySuda stated that sirens (Ancient Greek:Σειρῆνας -Seirênas)[c] had the form ofsparrows from their chests up, and below they were women or that they were little birds with women's faces.[16]
Originally, sirens were shown as male or female, but the male siren disappeared from art around the fifth century BC.[17]
Miniature illustration of a siren enticing sailors who try to resist her, from an EnglishBestiary,c. 1235
Some surviving Classical period examples had already depicted the siren as mermaid-like.[8] The sirens are described as mermaids or "tritonesses" in examples dating to the 3rd century BC, including an earthenware bowl found in Athens[20][22] and a terracotta oil lamp possibly from the Roman period.[8]
The first known literary attestation of siren as a "mermaid" appeared in the Anglo-Latin catalogueLiber Monstrorum (early 8th century AD), where it says that sirens were "sea-girls... with the body of a maiden, but have scaly fishes' tails".[23][24]
The siren appeared in several illustrated manuscripts of thePhysiologus and its successors called thebestiaries. The siren was depicted as a half-woman and half-fish mermaid in the 9th century BernePhysiologus,[25] as an early example, but continued to be illustrated with both bird-like parts (wings, clawed feet) and fish-like tail.[26]
InEuripides's playHelen (167), Helen in her anguish calls upon "Winged maidens, daughters of theEarth (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 ofOceanus andGe.[33] Sirens are found in many Greek stories, notably inHomer'sOdyssey.
Their names are variously rendered in the later sources as Thelxiepea/Thelxiope/Thelxinoe, Molpe, Himerope, Aglaophonos/Aglaope/Aglaopheme, Pisinoe/Peisinoë/Peisithoe, Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia, Rhaidne, Teles, etc.[43][44][45][46]
TheSiren of Canosa, statuette exposingpsychopomp characteristics, late fourth century BC
According toOvid (43 BC–17 AD), the sirens were the companions of youngPersephone.[47]Demeter gave them wings to search for Persephone when she was abducted byHades. However, theFabulae ofHyginus (64 BC–17 AD) has Demeter cursing the sirens for failing to intervene in the abduction of Persephone. According toHyginus, sirens were fated to live only until the mortals who heard their songs could pass by them.[48]
In the sanctuary ofHera inCoroneia 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.[49][50] According toStephanus 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 namedAptera ("featherless") and the nearby islands were called theLeukai ("the white ones").[51]John Tzetzes recounts that after defeating the sirens, the Muses crowned themselves with the sirens' wings, except forTerpsichore who was their mother, adding that the city of Aptera named after this event.[52] Furthermore, in one of his letters,Julian the Emperor mentions the Muses' victory over the sirens.[53]
In theArgonautica (third century BC),Jason had been warned byChiron thatOrpheus would be necessary in his journey. When Orpheus heard their voices, he drew out hislyre and played his music more beautifully than they, drowning out their voices. One of the crew, however, the sharp-eared heroButes, heard the song and leapt into the sea, but he was caught up and carried safely away by the goddessAphrodite.[13]
Odysseus was curious as to what the sirens sang to him, and so, on the advice ofCirce, he had all of his sailors plug their ears withbeeswax 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.[54] 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.[55]
The first-century Roman historianPliny the Elder discounted sirens as a pure fable, "although Dinon, the father of Clearchus, a celebrated writer, asserts that they exist inIndia, and that they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces."[56]
Statues of sirens in a funerary context are attested since the classical era, in mainlandGreece, as well asAsia Minor andMagna Graecia. The so-called "Siren of Canosa"—Canosa di Puglia is a site inApulia that was part ofMagna Graecia—was said to accompany the dead amonggrave goods in a burial. She appeared to have somepsychopomp characteristics, guiding the dead on the afterlife journey. The castterracotta figure bears traces of its original white pigment. The woman bears the feet, wings and tail of a bird. The sculpture is conserved in theNational Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid.The sirens were called the Muses of the lower world. Classical scholarWalter 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."[57] 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 onCirce's description of them "lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones."[58] As linguistJane 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."[59] The siren song is a promise to Odysseus of mantic truths; with a false promise that he will live to tell them, they sing,
Once he hears to his heart's content, sails on, a wiser man. We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so— all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all![60]
"They are mantic creatures like theSphinx 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 isdeath."[61] 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.[62]
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 ofClement of Alexandria (2nd century).[64] Later writers such asAmbrose (4th century) reiterated the notion that the siren stood as a symbol or allegory for worldly temptations[65] and not an endorsement of the Greek myth.
The early Christianeuhemerist interpretation of mythologized human beings received a long-lasting boost from theEtymologiae byIsidore of Seville (c. 560–636):
They [the Greeks] imagine that "there were three sirens, part virgins, part birds," with wings and claws. "One of them sang, another played the flute, the third the lyre. They drew sailors, decoyed by song, to shipwreck. According to the truth, however, they were prostitutes who led travelers down to poverty and were said to impose shipwreck on them." They had wings and claws because Love flies and wounds. They are said to have stayed in the waves because a wave createdVenus.[66]
The siren and theonocentaur, two hybrid creatures, appear as the subject of a single chapter in thePhysiologus,[67] as they appear together in theSeptuagint translation of the aforementioned Isaiah 13:21–22, and 34:14.[68][d] They also appear together in some Latin bestiaries of the First Family subgroup called B-Isidore ("B-Is").[71][67]
The siren's bird-like description from classical sources was retained in the Latin version of thePhysiologus (6th century) and several subsequentbestiaries into the 13th century,[76][70] but at some time during the interim, the mermaid shape was introduced to this body of works.[77]
The siren was illustrated as a woman-fish (mermaid) in theBern Physiologus dated to the mid-9th century, even though this contradicted the accompanying text which described it as avian.[25] 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 (volatilis habet figuram) down to their feet.[83][e]
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 aneel-fish.[85] 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.[f][74]
As bird-like
A counterexample is also given where the illustrated sirens (group of three) are bird-like, conforming to the text.[89]
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.[90][91] 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".[93][96]
Comb and mirror
Also, a siren may be holding a comb,[67][97] or a mirror.[99]
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.[100][101]
There also appeared medieval works that conflated sirens with mermaids while citingPhysiologus as their source.[107][108]
Italian poetDante Alighieri depicts a siren in Canto 19 ofPurgatorio, the second canticle of theDivine 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".[109] It is not until the pilgrim "gazes" upon her that she is turned desirable and is revealed by herself to be a siren.[109] 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!"[109] Given that Dante did not have access to theOdyssey, the siren's claim that she turned Ulysses from his course is inherently false because the sirens in theOdyssey do not manage to turn Ulysses from his path.[110] Ulysses and his men were warned byCirce and prepared for their encounter by stuffing their ears full of wax,[110][111] except for Ulysses, who wishes to be bound to the ship's mast as he wants to hear the siren's song.[111] Scholars claim thatDante may have "misinterpreted" the siren's claim from an episode inCicero'sDe finibus.[110] The pilgrim's dream comes to an end when a lady "holy and quick"[109] who had not yet been present before suddenly appears and says, "O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?"[109]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."[109] This marks the ending of the encounter between the pilgrim and the siren.
By the time of theRenaissance, female court musicians known ascourtesans 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.[113]
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."
However, in the 17th century, someJesuit writers began to assert their actual existence, includingCornelius a Lapide, who said of woman, "her glance is that of the fabledbasilisk, 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."[114]Antonio de Lorea [es] also argued for their existence, andAthanasius Kircher argued that compartments must have been built for them aboardNoah's Ark.[115]
John Lemprière in hisClassical 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 ofBochart, who deduces the name from aPhoenician term denoting asongstress, favours the explanation given of the fable byDamm.[117] 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."[118]
The Frenchimpressionist composer,Claude Debussy, composed the orchestral workNocturnes 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".[119]
Contemporary British composer and former child prodigy,Alma Deutscher, composed "Waltz of the Sirens", an orchestral work based on the mythology creature.[121]
English artistWilliam Etty portrayed the sirens as young women in fully human form in his 1837 paintingThe Sirens and Ulysses, a practice copied by future artists.[122]
^Argonautica 4.891ff. Seaton tr. (1912): "and at that time they were fashioned in part like birds and in part like maidens to behold"
^The headword is accusative plural (Commentary to the Sudas entry).
^The sirens (seirenes) do figure in the earliest surviving versions (version G, Μ Γ and others).[69] But the siren did not figure in the earlier Greek version of thePhysiologos (4th century, preserved by Epiphanius) nor the Armenian translation from Greek originals.[70]
^There is another entry for "siren", as a winged white serpent of Arabia.[84]
^Rotroff, Susan I. (1982).Hellenistic Painted Potter: Athenian and Imported Moldmade Bowls, The Athenian Agora 22. American School of Classical Studies at Athens. p. 67, #190; Plates 35, 80.ISBN978-0876612224.
^Perry, "The sirens in ancient literature and art", inThe Nineteenth Century, reprinted inChoice Literature: a monthly magazine (New York)2 (September–December 1883:163).
^Barber, Richard, ed. (1993)."Sirens".Bestiary: Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 : with All the Original Miniatures Reproduced in Facsimile. Boydell Press. p. 1150.ISBN9780851157535.
^Compare Northumberland bestiary (Getty MS 100)[94] (olim Alnwick bestiary,Alnwick Castle MS 447). Comment of "webbed feet" in the two examples[67] seems false for the CUL ms., while "webbed feet of an aquatic animal" is corroborated for the Northumberland bestiary.[95]
^Or there may be three sirens drawn, two holding fish and third a mirror, as in Getty MS. 100 (olim Alnwick ms.)[94][67] A similar composition occurs on the Morgan M.81,[73] cf. fig. right.
^Schafer, Edward H. (September 1930). "The Physiologus of Bern: A Survival of Alexandrian Style in a Ninth Century".The Art Bulletin.12 (3). Fig. 22 and p. 249.JSTOR3050780.
^"l'altre partie est figuree / Come peisson ou con oisel" (vv. 1058–1059).[103][104]
^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 byMustard (1908), p. 22
^Hugh of Saint Victor (d.1240),De bestiis et aliis rebus XCVII, quoted in Latin byMustard (1908), p. 23, and in translation byHolford-Strevens (2006), p. 32: "sirens.., as the Physiologus describes them have a woman's form above down to the navel, but their lower part down to the feet has the shape of a fish". The work continues "excerpts from Servius and Isidore" to say: "three Sirens, part maids, part fish, of whom one sang,..etc.". But despite attribution to Hugh, this work had so heavily interpolated that it has been a 16th century compilation, and dubbed a "problematic" bestiary. Cf.Clark (2006), pp. 10–11: Chapter 1: The ProblematicDe bestiis et aliis rebus.
^Longworth, T. Clifton, and Paul Tice (2003).A Survey of Sex & Celibacy in Religion. San Diego: The Book Tree, 61. Originally published asThe Devil a Monk Would Be: A Survey of Sex & Celibacy in Religion (1945).
^Carlson, Patricia Ann (ed.) (1986).Literature and Lore of the Sea. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 270.
^Austern, Linda Phyllis, and Inna Naroditskaya (eds.) (2006).Music of the Sirens. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press, 72.
^Damm, perhapsMythologie der Griechen und Römer (ed. Leveiow). Berlin, 1820.
Harrison, Jane Ellen (1922) (3rd ed.)Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.
Homer,The Odyssey
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"
%2c_f.47v_-_BL_Harley_MS_4751.jpg)
_01.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
