Sirens

“ I will omit a transcript of the sirens’ song for that reason, and also because it would cause Ulysses, Mungo Park, and many others, including the Dutch naval officer and myself, to look so embarrassed. Why do we ever listen to the sirens’ enticement? Well, why do men put feathers in their hats and go to war? Why do some of us love wearing regalia and making secret signs? Why are men abstemious when there is wine about, and smugglers when there isn’t? ”

“ Ruskin says that "the Sirens are the great constant desires, the infinite sicknesses of heart, which, rightly placed, give life, and, wrongly placed, waste it away; so that there are two groups of Sirens, one noble and saving, as the other is fatal." ”

“ Remember the mythical story of the sirens who decoyed men to death. When the wise Ulysses had to sail hard by the enchanted isle, he bound the sailors fast to the mast with knotted ropes, and when the ravishing strains of their music floated over the waves they could only tug at their cords, they could not go to their death. ”

“ Not far from here, they point out the veritable caves of the Sirens, who have now shut up house, and gone away, like the rest of the nobility. If I had been a mariner in their day, I should have made no effort to sail by and away from their soothing shore. ”

“ That looks the fairer for our darker days.
The sirens' voices ever in our ear,
Vainly we struggle; Fate our lot has cast.
We drift along, powerless our course to steer,
Bound by a threefold cord unto the mast. ”

“ Well, inasmuch as the South Seas sirens have breathed new life into you, we are bound to be heartily grateful to them, though as they keep you so far removed from us, it is difficult not to bear them a grudge ”

“ Meanwhile our stanch ship swiftly neared the Sirens’ island; a fair wind swept her on. On a sudden the wind ceased; there came a breathless calm; Heaven hushed the waves. My comrades, rising, furled the sail, stowed it on board the hollow ship, then sitting at their oars whitened the water with the polished blades. But I with my sharp sword cut a great cake of wax into small bits, which I then kneaded in my sturdy hands. Soon the wax warmed, forced by the powerful pressure and by the rays of the exalted sun, the lord of all. Then one by one I stopped the ears of all my crew ”

“ These seals, with their rounded heads, their upturned look, their expressive eyes, presented an appearance, almost a physiognomy, that was mild and wellnigh tender, and served to recall to the traveler's memory the tales about the sirens of the olden and modern times, who served as the enchantresses to just such inhospitable shores as that seemed on which they had themselves been cast. ”

“ Finally, the siren, or mermaid, who had a woman's face, and ended now as a bird, now as a fish; and who, according to Greek grammarians, had the form of a sparrow in its upper parts and of a woman in the lower, seems to be a lunar rather than a solar animal. The sirens allure navigators in particular, and fly after the ship of the cunning Odysseus, who stuffs his ears; for which reason they throw themselves in despair into the sea. The sirens are fairies like Circe; hence Horace [329] names them together ”

“ The Japanese artists rightly concluded they could float their Siren in any intellectual waters where Jonah in his whale could pass, or a fish appear with its penny. Nay, even in their primitive form the Sirens find their kith and kin still haunting all the coasts of northern Europe. A type of the Irish and Scottish Siren may be found in the very complete legend of one seen by John Reid, shipmaster of Cromarty. ”

“ So, again, a Siren is represented in connection with a tomb [1494] ; and in a scene representing a banquet in Elysium they are depicted crowning the dead. [1495] On some vases we find a Siren playing a flute or a lyre (probably merely fanciful subjects) [1496] ; or, again, two Sirens kissing each other. [1497] As mere decorative motives their appearances are countless, and many early vases are modelled in the form of Sirens [1498] ; sometimes they have human arms [1499] ”

“ And if thou shalt entreat thy comrades to loose thee, they must bind the bonds all the faster.
"'When thou shalt have passed the island of the Sirens, then thou must choose for thyself which path thou shalt take. On the one side are the rocks that men call the Wandering Rocks. By these not even winged creatures can pass unharmed. No ship can pass them by unhurt; all round them do the waves toss timbers of broken ships and bodies of men that are drowned. ”

“ First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.’
“I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached the island of the two Sirens, [102] for the wind had been very favourable. ”

“ News was received [12] at midnight from the foremost ships that they had observed four suspicious torpedo-boats without lights. Vigilance was redoubled, but thank God the night passed happily. At present there is a fog. Nothing is visible all around. The sirens which you dislike so much are shrieking. I went to bed, dressed, last night, and did not cover myself with the counterpane, but just threw my overalls over me. ”

“ If silly young men do dawdle at the bar for the sake of the sirens inside, and occasionally, as we have known to be the case, take unto themselves these same sirens "for better or for worse," we can only cite the opinion of well-informed authorities, that very possibly the young gentlemen in question might have gone farther and fared worse, and that it is not always the young lady who has, in such a case, the best of the bargain. ”

“ The sirens will by now have alarmed half the country-side—a vast number of men will be on their way hither—there will be a crowd upon the road—some of the men may be rough. Those who ... those whom you love," he added with a harsh laugh, "would not wish you to go to them alone." ”

“ Our practice has furnished many illustrations of Thackeray's shrewd remark, that "Most men have sailed near the dangerous isles of the Sirens at some time of their lives, and some have come away thence wanting a strait-waistcoat." ”

“ But here as soon as we have crossed the wall we shall be exposed to a deadly fire, not only of rifles, but of machine guns. Of these the enemy have two on motor tricycles, and it is understood that the call of their sirens is a signal that they are in action. ”

“ My mates ascend the ship; they strike their oars;
The mountains lessen, and retreat the shores;
Swift o’er the waves we fly; the freshening gales
Sing through the shrouds, and stretch the swelling sails.”
BOOK XII. ARGUMENT.
THE SIRENE, SCYLLA, AND CHARYBDIS.
He relates how, after his return from the shades, he was sent by Circe on his voyage, by the coast of the Sirens, and by the strait of Scylla and Charybdis: the manner in which he escaped those dangers: how, being cast on the island Trinacria, his companions destroyed the oxen of the Sun: the vengeance that followed ”

“ We agreed to this, and feasted the live-long day to the 23 going down of the sun, but at nightfall Circe took me aside, and told me of the voyage that was before us. 'You will first,' said she, 'come to the island of the two Sirens, who sit in a field of flowers, and warble all who draw near them to death with the sweetness of their song. Dead men's bones are lying strewn all round them ”

“ He looked at me as though something was on his mind, and going out to the entrance rock, gazed at the external blue. Then returning into our twilight he said "As a rule only good people see the Siren."
I made no comment. There was a pause, and he continued. "That is a very strange thing, and the priests do not know how to account for it; for she of course is wicked. Not only those who fast and go to mass are in danger, but even those who are merely good in daily life. No one in the village had seen her for two generations. ”

“ Instantly the news reaches the Captain through the water-alarm. The Captain simply presses a button, and at once not only does the general alarm ring, but the "siren" whistle on the ship is set to shrieking most horribly. Those siren whistles are seldom heard either in port or at sea. They begin their noise with a low [Pg 89] moan, and run up to an awful shriek, with a thin, ear-piercing note that is almost unendurable. The siren may be blown by electricity as easily as an electric door-bell may be rung. ”

“ I agree that the Siren, while on her way, after capture, under the charge of the prize master, was in fault in the collision with the sloop Harper, on her passage from the East River into the Sound, and that, if she had belonged to a private owner, she would have been liable, in the admiralty, for all the damages consequent upon this fault. ”

“ She had, moreover, to be dragged out stern foremost—an ill omen, the sailors thought—and as she swung before the wind a passing drift of fog concealed her, for a moment, from the gaze of those on shore, who, from this, foretold things of evil. Though large and new, the ship was so “walty”—inclined to roll—that the captain set off with misgiving, and as she moved away the crew heard this solemn and disheartening invocation from a clergyman on the wharf:—“Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these, our friends, in the bottom of the sea, take them; they are thine: save them.” ”

“ The fight goes on; it goes on for ever and ever it seems; and the world in the smoke and the noises and sounds of the combat grow farther and farther away; they come to me unreally, in a far-off roar, like the sea.
I hear the sound of waves; the water roars, and roars, and roars—farther and farther—then nearer again; the ship moves and heaves and turns slowly round under the motion. And now I hear the sound of my harp playing, coming through the sound of the water; that ceases, and I hear the sound of Snorē’s and Helga’s voices speaking softly. ”

“ The sea became a circle of inky blackness furrowed by two ghostly lines of foam. The sky melted into a maze of velvet and lonely light-points. Along the shadowy hatches sat and crooned vaguely outlined groups of seamen, and from somewhere below decks rose the sound of string-music, mournful, outlandish, touched with mystery, as the lonely ship and the huddled lives she sheltered drifted farther and farther southward.
The outward sense of peace that brooded over the Laminian was not shared by certain of her passengers. ”

“ The dark, streaming hair of the women fell over their well-turned shoulders or swept round their heads in a circle, as the dark syrens went through the most extraordinary gyrations, with the rapidity of electrified humming-tops, while the men, twirling their weapons furiously in the air, yelled in a loud chorus which terminated in a long, deep, expressive sigh. ”

“ Frown above the waterfalls
⁠Silver and cold;
⁠Timelessly old:
⁠Not that way.
Not toward Death, who, stranger, fairer,
Than any siren turns his head—
Than sea-couched siren, arched with rain-bows,
Where knell the waves of her ocean bed. ”

“ Silence throughout the boat—silence aboard the barque—silence everywhere: the only sound heard being the “drip-drop” of the water as it falls from the feathered oar-blades.
For a time the cutter’s crew remains mute, not one essaying to speak a word. They are silent, less from surprise than sheer stark terror. Fear is depicted on their faces and observable in their attitudes, as no wonder it should. What they have just seen is sufficient to terrify the stoutest hearts—even those of tried tars, as all of them are. A ship manned by hairy men—a crew of veritable Orsons! ”

“ Now, the sides of a ship form a very large collecting surface, and at the distance of several miles from such a water siren as might be constructed, we feel quite sure that, above the noise of engines and flapping sails, above the far more troublesome noise of waves striking the ship's side, the musical note of the distant siren would be heard, giving warning of a dangerous neighborhood. ”

“ Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends;
And large recruits he to my navy sends:
Men, horses, captains, arms, and warlike stores;
Supplies new pilots, and new sweeping oars.
Meantime, my sire commands to hoist our sails,
Lest we should lose the first auspicious gales. ”

“ And the cracked piano, too, for music, which, on the exit of the Giants and the Columbine, comes out as strong as the poor old thing can when supported by violins and violoncellos.
Enter "Silenus and his Crew." I hear some one say this. Not a bit like a crew. Not a sailor among them. Perhaps as this is a Mask, they are sailors in disguise. Silenus is, of course, supposed to be intoxicated. If he is intended to represent an ugly old man, dismally drunk, and making painful efforts to catch a note, he succeeds, to the life. ”

“ With strange foreboding, till he seemed a speck
Upon the ebon bosom of the cloud.
And I remembered that he once had said,
"I fear I shall not see my home again:"
And sad the memory of those mournful words,
Dwelt with me, as he passed above my sight
Into thick darkness.
The wild blast swept on,
The strong ship tossed.
Shuddering, I heard a plunge
A heavy plunge—a gurgling 'mid the wave.
I shouted to the crew. In vain! In vain! ”