It's All Greek to Me!

Odysseus and the Sirens! During his long a** voyage back from the Trojan War (it took as long as the war did!), Odysseus and his men were met with many perils. One being the Sirens. The sirens have been described many different ways, both in the ancient texts and in art. Sometimes they are mermaids, sometimes they are creatures with the faces of women and the bodies of vultures. Either way, their unifying feature is that they live on an island in the middle of the ocean, and have beautiful voices. When ships get within earshot of their island, they sing, and their song was said to be so seductive that all men who heard their song would immediately either jump overboard and try to swim to their shore, or try to sail their ship close enough to dock.

This is how the Sirens hunted, for their island was surrounded by hundreds of dangerous rocks, and any who tried to approach them would be tossed upon the rocks, and then eaten by the Sirens.

Odysseus, or the Roman Ulysses, wanted to hear their irresistible song, and so had his crew all plug their ears with wax (to block out the Siren song) and then tie him fast to the mast of the ship, so that he could hear the song and yet not jump overboard.

A subject of many artists’ fancy, this scene has been depicted in multiple ways. The sirens never left their island, but these artists found it more visually appealing to show the lure the sirens had on any who heard their song.

Here we have Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper, courtesy of the lovely blog http://greekmythologyy.tumblr.com/, Ulysses and the Sirens by my love John William Waterhouse, c. 1891, The Siren, also by Waterhouse, 1900, Ulysses and the Sirens, by  Firmin-Girard Marie Francois (?), 1868, and an ancient vase depicted Odysseus and the Sirens