In Greek mythology, sirens are female human-like beings with very attractive voices. They appear in the story of the Odyssey, where Odysseus helps his crew avoid the sirens' dangerous songs. Roman poets described them living on small islands known as Sirenum Scopuli. In later traditions, the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, was sometimes said to be located near Cape Pelorum, the Sirenuse islands near Paestum, or Capreae. All these places were surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Some stories show sirens with bird heads, while others show them as half-human and half-fish.

In medieval Christian art, sirens were symbols of dangerous temptations by women. The word "siren" can also be slang for a very attractive and dangerous woman.

Nomenclature

The origin of the name is disputed. Robert S. P. Beekes proposed it may come from a language older than Greek. Others believe it is linked to the Greek words σειρά (seirá, "rope, cord") and εἴρω (eírō, "to tie, join, fasten"), suggesting the name means "binder, entangler," or someone who ties or traps using magic songs. This may relate to the story of Odysseus being tied to the mast of his ship to avoid the Sirens' song.

Later, Sirens were often used as a synonym for mermaids and shown with human upper bodies and fish tails. This image became famous during the medieval period. The blending of these ideas began in medieval texts like the Physiologus and bestiaries, which described mythical creatures through both pictures and written descriptions. These texts were translated from Latin into common languages, influencing how Sirens were portrayed.

Iconography

In Greek mythology, sirens first appeared in Homer’s Odyssey. Homer did not describe their appearance, leaving it to readers to imagine. By the 7th century BC, artists often showed sirens as birds with human heads. Apollonius of Rhodes, in his work Argonautica (3rd century BC), wrote that sirens had bodies part woman and part bird. They might have been inspired by the ba-bird from Egyptian religion. In early Greek art, sirens were usually shown as large birds with women’s heads, bird feathers, and scaly feet. Later, artists depicted them with human upper bodies, bird legs, and sometimes wings. They were often shown playing musical instruments like the lyre, kithara, and aulos.

The 10th-century Byzantine dictionary Suda stated that sirens (Ancient Greek: Σειρῆνας – Seirênas) had the body of sparrows from their chests up, with women’s bodies below, or were small birds with women’s faces.

Originally, sirens were shown as either male or female, but male sirens disappeared from art around the 5th century BC.

Some examples from the Classical period already showed sirens as mermaid-like. In the 3rd century BC, sirens were described as mermaids or "tritonesses" in items like an earthenware bowl found in Athens and a terracotta oil lamp possibly from the Roman period.

The first known written description of sirens as "mermaids" appeared in the Anglo-Latin text Liber Monstrorum (early 8th century AD), which called them "sea-girls… with the body of a maiden, but with scaly fish tails."

Sirens appeared in illustrated manuscripts of Physiologus and its successors, called bestiaries. In the 9th century Berne Physiologus, sirens were shown as half-woman and half-fish mermaids. However, they were still sometimes drawn with bird-like features, such as wings or clawed feet, and fish-like tails.

Classical literature

Although a piece by Sophocles says Phorcys is their father, when sirens are named, they are usually described as daughters of the river god Achelous. Their mothers are often listed as the Muse Terpsichore, Melpomene, or Calliope, or lastly as Sterope, the daughter of King Porthaon of Calydon.

In Euripides' play Helen (167), Helen, in her sorrow, calls upon "Winged maidens, daughters of the Earth (Chthon)." Although they lured sailors, the Greeks often showed sirens in stories as beings in a "meadow starred with flowers," not as sea deities. Epimenides said the sirens were children of Oceanus and Ge. Sirens appear in many Greek stories, especially in Homer's Odyssey.

The number of sirens varies, with reports ranging from two to eight. In the Odyssey, Homer does not mention their origin or names but says there were two. Later writers gave names and numbers: some say three—Peisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepea; others say three—Aglaonoe, Aglaopheme, and Thelxiepea; or three—Parthenope, Ligeia, and Leucosia. Apollonius followed Hesiod's list: Thelxinoe, Molpe, and Aglaophonos. The Suda lists Thelxiepea, Peisinoe, and Ligeia. Hyginus says there were four: Teles, Rhaidne, Molpe, and Thelxiope. Eustathius says there were two: Aglaopheme and Thelxiepea. An ancient vase painting shows two names: Himerope and Thelxiepea.

Their names appear in later sources as Thelxiepea/Thelxiope/Thelxinoe, Molpe, Himerope, Aglaophonos/Aglaope/Aglaopheme, Peisinoe/Peisithoe, Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia, Rhaidne, Teles, and others.

• Molpe (Μολπή)
• Thelxiepe(i)a (Θελξιέπεια) or Thelxiope (Θελξιόπη) "eye pleasing" or Thelxinoe (Θελξινόη)
• Himerope (Ἱμερόπη)
• Aglaophonos (Ἀγλαόφωνος) or Aglaope (Ἀγλαόπη) or Aglaopheme (Ἀγλαοφήμη)
• Peisinoe (Πεισινόη) or Peisithoe (Πεισιθόη)
• Parthenope (Παρθενόπη)
• Ligeia (Λίγεια)
• Leucosia (Λευκωσία)
• Rhaidne (Ῥαίδνη)
• Teles (Τέλης)
• Telchter(e)ia (Θελχτήρεια)

According to Ovid (43 BC–17 AD), the sirens were companions of young Persephone. Demeter gave them wings to search for Persephone after she was taken by Hades. However, Hyginus (64 BC–17 AD) says Demeter cursed the sirens for failing to stop Persephone’s abduction. Hyginus also says sirens were destined to live only until the mortals who heard their songs could pass them.

In the sanctuary of Hera in Coroneia, a statue made by Pythodorus of Thebes showed Hera holding sirens. According to myth, Hera persuaded the sirens to challenge the Muses in a singing contest. After the Muses won, they took the sirens’ feathers to make crowns. According to Stephanus of Byzantium, the sirens, upset by their loss, threw their feathers away, turned white, and jumped into the sea. The nearby city was named Aptera ("featherless"), and the nearby islands were called Leukai ("the white ones"). John Tzetzes says the Muses used the sirens’ wings for crowns, except for Terpsichore, who was their mother. Julian the Emperor also wrote about the Muses’ victory over the sirens.

In the Argonautica (third century BC), Jason was warned by Chiron that Orpheus would be needed on his journey. When Orpheus heard the sirens’ song, he played his lyre more beautifully, drowning out their voices. One crew member, Butes, heard the song and jumped into the sea but was saved by Aphrodite.

Odysseus was curious about the sirens’ song and, following Circe’s advice, had his sailors plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered them to keep him tied no matter how much he begged. When he heard their song, he asked to be untied, but they bound him tighter. After they passed out of earshot, Odysseus signaled for release. Some later writers say the sirens died after Odysseus escaped, throwing themselves into the water.

The first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder called sirens a pure fable, though he noted that Dinon, the father of Clearchus, claimed they existed in India and lured men to sleep before killing them.

Statues of sirens in funerary settings appear in classical Greece, Asia Minor, and Magna Graecia. The "Siren of Canosa," from Canosa di Puglia in Magna Graecia, was part of burial goods and may have guided the dead. The terracotta figure had bird-like feet, wings, and a tail, and was originally white. It is now in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid. Sirens were sometimes called the "Muses of the lower world." Classical scholar Walter Copland Perry said their song was sweet but also sad, causing a deadly sleep. Their song was linked to Persephone.

The term "siren song" describes an irresistible but dangerous appeal. Later writers, based on Circe’s description, said sirens ate humans, as she described heaps of rotting corpses near them. Jane Ellen Harrison noted that Homer made sirens appeal to the spirit, not the body. Harrison also said sirens, like the Sphinx, knew the past and future, and their song caused death. The rotting flesh of sailors suggests they were not eaten but may have died from

Late antiquity to the modern era

The ancient Hebrew Book of Enoch describes women who were led astray by fallen angels as being turned into sirens.

Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, used the word "sirens" to describe "jackals" in the Book of Isaiah 13:22 and "owls" in the Book of Jeremiah 50:39.

In the teachings of Clement of Alexandria, a siren was described as a beautiful woman who lured men with music, representing the vice of pleasure. Later writers, such as Ambrose, explained that sirens symbolized worldly temptations, not the Greek myth itself.

Isidore of Seville, who wrote the Etymologiae, helped spread the idea that myths were based on real people.

The Physiologus, an ancient text, describes sirens and onocentaurs (hybrid creatures) in the same chapter. These creatures also appear together in the Septuagint version of Isaiah 13:21–22 and 34:14, as well as in some Latin bestiaries from the B-Isidore group.

The Physiologus and other bestiaries from the 6th to 13th centuries described sirens as bird-like creatures. However, over time, some texts began to show sirens as mermaids (half-human, half-fish).

The Bern Physiologus, a 9th-century text, illustrated sirens as mermaids, even though the text described them as birds. A 13th-century Latin bestiary also showed sirens as mermaids with fishtails, despite the text saying they resembled winged birds.

In later bestiaries, sirens were often drawn as mermaids holding musical instruments, sometimes with an eel-like fish. Some illustrations showed sirens with bird-like wings and feet.

The comb and mirror, now symbols of mermaids, originated from bestiaries that described sirens as vain creatures needing these items.

Bestiaries later changed their descriptions to match artistic styles.

In the 13th century, some texts described sirens as having "fish-like" or "bird-like" features.

Medieval works sometimes mixed sirens with mermaids, claiming the Physiologus as their source.

In Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio, a siren appears in a dream. She is described as unattractive but becomes beautiful when the pilgrim looks at her. She claims to have lured Ulysses away from his path, but this is incorrect because Ulysses in the Odyssey was warned and prepared for the sirens. Dante may have misunderstood the siren’s story from Cicero’s De finibus. The dream ends when a holy woman appears and reveals the siren’s true, unpleasant appearance.

In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136), Brutus of Troy encounters sirens near the Pillars of Hercules before traveling to Britain.

During the Renaissance, female musicians known as courtesans were seen as immoral. Female singers were linked to sirens because they were believed to control men’s reasoning.

Leonardo da Vinci wrote that sirens sang so beautifully that sailors fell asleep and were killed.

In the 17th century, some Jesuit writers claimed sirens existed. Cornelius a Lapide compared a woman’s beauty and voice to a siren’s. Antonio de Lorea and Athanasius Kircher argued that Noah’s Ark had compartments for sirens.

Charles Burney, in A General History of Music (c. 1789), suggested the word "siren" came from a Phoenician term for a songstress. He believed the myth arose from immoral singers in Sicily who lured travelers.

John Lemprière, in his Classical Dictionary (1827), wrote that some believed sirens were immoral women in Sicily who distracted travelers with music. He agreed with Damm’s theory that sirens were skilled singers who used their music to keep travelers from returning home.

Arts and influence

The French composer Claude Debussy created the orchestral piece Nocturnes, with the third movement titled Sirènes. This section represents sirens and the sea, with Debussy stating that it shows "the sea and its many rhythms" and "the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on" under moonlight.

In 1911, the French composer Lili Boulanger wrote Les sirènes for a solo mezzo-soprano, choir, and piano.

The contemporary British composer Alma Deutscher, who was once a child prodigy, composed Waltz of the Sirens, an orchestral piece inspired by the mythological creature.

The English artist William Etty painted The Sirens and Ulysses in 1837, showing sirens as young women in human form. This approach was later used by other artists.