by Tim Harry

Created on: February 01, 2009   Last Updated: February 26, 2009

The mythology of Ancient Greece if full of the tales of the heroes and gods that inhabited the ancient world, these stories though would often interact with other creatures. One such group was the Sirens, beautiful but deadly, the Sirens would lure mariners to their death through their song.

The Sirens were originally beautiful water nymphs, and were two, three, four or five in number depending on the writer of the tales. Parentage is also confusing, the father being Achelous, the river god, or Phorcys, the Old Man of the Sea. The mother is also named as Chthon, Sterope, Terpischore or Melpomene.

The original role of the Sirens was to by the hand-maidens and playmates to Persephone, the daughter of the goddess Demeter. Persephone though was abducted by Hades, who wished her to be his wife. Demeter was distraught at her loss, and to aid her search transformed the Sirens by providing them with wings in order that they could search a greater area for her daughter. The provision of wings has meant that the Sirens were subsequently portrayed as bird-women, although there is no single description of their appearance, and the myths say that no one ever saw them and survived to tell others. As a result descritpions of the Sirens range from beautiful women with wings, to large birds with just the head of a woman. There is though agreement that the voices and their songs were so beautiful and seductive that no man could resist them.

Once Persephone was recovered her new role saw her spend part of the year on the surface world, and part in the Underworld with her new husband, Hades. Persephone was no longer able to have maidens to accompany her, and so the Sirens were given a new role and a new home. The new home was Sirenum scopuli, three rocky islands from which the Sirens were to lure mariners to death on their rocky cliffs. There is no single defined location for the island of the Sirens, and some sources place it in the Tyrrhenian Sea, often near to Capri or Sorrento. Capri is also named as being the original island of Anthemoessa, which in some sources was also the home of the Sirens.

The Sirens were actually did not make frequent appearances in the tales of Greek mythology, and although they were occasionally mentioned, their fames comes from the adventures of two major Greek heroes. The first of these heroes was Jason. The route of the Argo took the ship into the region inhabited by the Sirens. Jason though was aware of the threat that they offered his crew, and so as they drew near he had Orpheus play his lyre. Orpheus was a master musician and his songs were so loud and so beautiful that the songs of the Sirens were drowned out. All of the crew were thus saved, even Butes who though he heard the Sirens was rescued by Aphrodite.

The second Greek hero was Odysseus on his journey back from the Trojan wars. Odysseus and his crew departed from Circe's island, and upon his departure the goddess warned that the crew would need to block their ears with wax to escape the Sirens song. All of the crew followed this advice, apart from the hero himself who wanted to hear the words of the song. Thus Odysseus had himself tied to the main mast. The ship sailed passed the Sirens and Odysseus heard the song, and despite his remonstrations the crew did not release him.

In some later sources, the encounter with Odysseus was the end of the Sirens, and as the hero had heard their song and had survived they committed suicide. Odysseus though was the second hero to hear the song, as Butes had heard and also survived.

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