“ As sea-nymphs, they represent the treacherous calm of ocean, which conceals destruction beneath its smiling surface; or they signify the enervating influence of the hot wind (compare the name Sirius) , which shrivels up the fresh young life of vegetation. ”

“ Another conception of them is that of singers of the lament for the dead, for which reason they are often used in the adornment of tombs, and represented beating their breasts and tearing their hair or playing the flute or lyre. In early art, they were represented as birds with the heads of women ”

“ Σειρῆνες) , in Greek mythology, the daughters of Phorcys the sea-god, or, in later legend, of the river-god Acheloüs and one of the nymphs. In Homer they are two in number (in later writers generally three) ; their home is an island in the western sea between Aeaea, the island of Circe, and the rock of Scylla. They are nymphs of the sea, who, like the Lorelei of German legend, lured mariners to destruction by their sweet song. Odysseus, warned by Circe, escaped the danger by stopping the ears of his crew with wax and binding himself to the mast until he was out of hearing (Odyssey xii.) ”