Sadly you have mistaken the Sirens’ appearance and wrongly given the passage describing Scylla who lives in the cliff cave above Charybdis the whirlpool.
Apollodorus writes “The Sirens were daughters of Acheloos by Melpomene, one of the Muses, and their names were Peisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepeia. One of them played the lyre, another sang, and the third played the flute, and by these means they caused passing sailors to want to remain with them.” To imply that because the mother of the sirens is the muse of tragedy, then by “blood guilt” so are the sirens is a little strong. Counter example, Debussy’s Nocturnes.
Brilliant breakdown of how the Siren's image shifted from monstrous to seductive over centuries. That transformation from bird-woman to temptress really shows how cultures reframe mythology to fit their anxieties. I've noticed simialr patterns in modern media where old monsters get reimagined as tragic figures. The idea that early Christians turned them into prostututes says alot about how religious narratives reshape pagan symbols.
I named my last boat Siren Song. It turned out to be a very fitting name, which I semi-consciously knew it would be when I bought her. She was a temptress in port, a devil at sea.
Read Homer Bk 12 lines 1-100 for Sirens, Scylla, Wandering Rocks and Charybdis. Sirens sang sailors to their deaths on the rocks and did not have monstrous heads. Hesiodic scholiast gives them 3 names while later commentators added an imaginary detail until, down the centuries, descriptions were amazingly full. But not original….
Sadly you have mistaken the Sirens’ appearance and wrongly given the passage describing Scylla who lives in the cliff cave above Charybdis the whirlpool.
The evolution of the appearance of the sirens is worthy of an entire article themselves!
Yes agreed but the article quotes Scylla virtually as a siren. Go consult Hesiod.
What section are you referring to? Happy to correct it if it's wrong!
It has already been corrected! :-)
Ahhh! That explains why I didn’t see it!
Apollodorus writes “The Sirens were daughters of Acheloos by Melpomene, one of the Muses, and their names were Peisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepeia. One of them played the lyre, another sang, and the third played the flute, and by these means they caused passing sailors to want to remain with them.” To imply that because the mother of the sirens is the muse of tragedy, then by “blood guilt” so are the sirens is a little strong. Counter example, Debussy’s Nocturnes.
https://open.substack.com/pub/edgarpocius/p/the-siren-trap?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&shareImageVariant=overlay&r=6d6mpm I wrote about the sirens a few days ago—it’s one episode in a longer series on the psychology of Odysseus and what it can teach us about the modern world. If that sounds interesting, you can check it out on my Substack. And thanks for the interesting text.
Brilliant breakdown of how the Siren's image shifted from monstrous to seductive over centuries. That transformation from bird-woman to temptress really shows how cultures reframe mythology to fit their anxieties. I've noticed simialr patterns in modern media where old monsters get reimagined as tragic figures. The idea that early Christians turned them into prostututes says alot about how religious narratives reshape pagan symbols.
perhaps the sirens are a metaphor for addiction-to love,sex,money,power,anything alluring and self-destructive
I named my last boat Siren Song. It turned out to be a very fitting name, which I semi-consciously knew it would be when I bought her. She was a temptress in port, a devil at sea.
Read Homer Bk 12 lines 1-100 for Sirens, Scylla, Wandering Rocks and Charybdis. Sirens sang sailors to their deaths on the rocks and did not have monstrous heads. Hesiodic scholiast gives them 3 names while later commentators added an imaginary detail until, down the centuries, descriptions were amazingly full. But not original….
Or one might ask, what does “destiny” mean?