Siren (mythology)

“ The myths of siren, satyr, Janus, cyclops and the like, with the corresponding figures in Northern mythology, find a remote anatomical basis in monstrosities which have, for the most part, no life except in the foetal state. The mythology of giants and dwarfs is, of course ”

“ This article is mostly original. Sirene, genitive of sirena; the title in T. is ‘De Sirenis’; classical Latin has only siren, -is, fem. In T. they are female and birds in the nether half; his account is very brief and general, and it is followed closely by that of the onocentaur, which is ‘biformis’ like the siren; the ‘significacio’ is common to both. An earlier description is found in Layamon, 1322-1347, which is based on Wace, Brut, 733-771. The author of the Bestiary was acquainted with one or both of these. Comp. also Bozon, Contes Moralisés, p. ”

“ And thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the power of Circe, who is no daughter of the Muses, but of the strong elements, Sun and Sea; her power is that of frank, and full vital pleasure, which, if governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no "moly," bitterness or delay, mixed with it, turns men into beasts, but does not slay them,—leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. She is herself indeed an Enchantress;—pure Animal life ”

“ To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who bewitch all men, whosoever shall come to them. Whoso draws nigh them unwittingly and hears the sound of the Siren's voice, never doth he see wife or babes stand by him on his return, nor have they joy at his coming; but the Sirens enchant him with their clear song. ”

“ The beastie lives to eat, and his mouth is, it seems, his chief organ. This ugly head sits close on an eel-like body which finishes up in a point at the tail, where there is a fin, as a fish has.
The most conspicuous feature of the siren is the appendage placed branch-like on each side of the neck. These appendages have three divisions, each one with a separate attachment, and under each one is a small slit or opening into the siren’s throat. What are these branches waving like plumes? They are external gills, and very pretty they are, the only pretty things about a siren ”

“ Thee the deathful Sirens lie in wait for, that taint the minds of whoever listen to them with their sweet singing. Whosoever shall but hear the call of any Siren, he will so despise both wife and children through their sorceries, that the stream of his affection never again shall set homewards, nor shall he take joy in wife or children thereafter, or they in him."
With these prophetic greetings great Circe met Ulysses on his return. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A special confirmation is given in this case, as the Siren is represented mounted on her sea-horse crossing the Styx upon the vase of Pluto and Proserpine in the collection of the Naples Museum. This vase dates about 250 B.C., and the Siren charms represent her in the same way, but usually mounted on two sea-horses. The sea-horse and the Siren alone are commonly found as charms; the Siren being sometimes in her fishtail form and sometimes in the form of a harpy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ De Sterny sat down by the chimney to warm his feet. "Deuced cold!--hand me the chartreuse, so--Yes, a refined siren if you like," he continued. "The siren has soft human arms with which she draws us into destructive pleasures, the chimera has claws with which she tears our heart. The siren entices us into the mire, the chimera lures us toward heaven,--only we don't reach the heaven, and we often find ourselves very well off in the mire,--deucedly well off! But saperment! you don't understand that yet." And he pulled Gesa's ear. ”

“ I take it [Pg 196] that the two Sirens—who are always winged in the earlier Greek representations of them—were, as indeed their name suggests, the whistling gusts or avalanches of air that descended without the slightest warning from the two mountains of Didyme. The story turned from poetry into prose means, "Woe to him who draws near the two treacherous mountains of Didyme; the coast is strewn with wreckage, and if he hears the wind from off them shriek in his rigging his bones will whiten the shore." The reader will remember that the Sirens' island is very near Circe's. ”

“ Syrene, the mermayde is a dedely beste that bringeth a man gladly to dethe / frome the nauyll vp she is lyke a woman 122 with a dredfull face / a long slymye here, a grete body, Siren is like an eagle below, & is lyke the egle in the nether parte / hauinge fete and talentis to tear asonder suche as she geteth / her tayl is sealed like a fisshe / sings sweet songs to mariners, and she singeth a maner of swete song, and therwith deceyueth many a gode mariner / for whan they here it, they fall on slepe commonly / & than she commeth, and draweth them out of the shippe, and tears them to pieces. ”

“ Begging her to listen, Pan followed; and Syrinx, more and more frightened by the patter of his hoofs, never heeded him, but went as fast as light till she came to the brink of the river. Only then she paused, praying her friends, the water-nymphs, for some way of escape. The gentle, bewildered creatures, looking up through the water, could think of but one device.
Just as the god overtook Syrinx and stretched out his arms to her, she vanished like a mist, and he found himself grasping a cluster of tall reeds. Poor Pan! ”

“ Every time a siren hooted he hunched himself more closely together, as though the compression of his limbs would afford him some protection.
“I think the glare is dying down, Silas,” she said gently.
He hunched himself fretfully away.
He was thinking, “They are full of forbearance and long-suffering. Am I to be taught gratitude? perhaps through disaster? They would let God himself look into every corner of their minds. Little children!” For the moment, under the effect of his fear, he did not brand them as lacking in savour. Their limpidity seemed to him as desirable as the absence of danger. ”

“ In the latter case the child becomes the prophesying Sibylla, and in the former the history goes on to tell marvellous adventures which bring the Sira story in closer similarity still to the Merlin legend. For Sira or Sirach speaks to his mother immediately after birth and comforts her, protecting her against the abuse of the world, almost with the same words as used by Merlin, who also protects his mother and proves her innocence. Sira's wisdom spreads far and wide and excites the envy and animosity of the astrologers and magicians at the court of king Nebuchadnezzar. ”

“ Sirena looked at her mother.
“He wants to be funny, Sirena,” said her mother, soothingly.
“Then he isn’t funny; he’s never funny,” said Sirena, drawing herself up with dignity.
“Totty Belmont says you’re the teasenest, hatefulest boy she knows! So there,” remarked Sirena.
“Oh, ho! I don’t wonder the doll is scared. Why don’t you treat that pretty creature with some consideration? Dragging her over the carpet, and spoiling her pretty dress! Now you’ll see, just as soon as she comes to me, because I’m good-looking and nice, she’ll put her eyes down and smile at me as lovely as ever.” ”

“ Her name was Sirona, sometimes lisped into Đirona, and a monument now in the museum at Munich gives a bas-relief representation of her and Apollo Grannos. [49] The latter holds a very large lyre in his left hand, and what may have been a plectrum in the other, while on another face of the stone stands Sirona in a long dress: she has the general appearance of one of the class of Gaulish divinities called Mothers or Matrons: in her left hand she has a bunch of fruit, and in her right some ears of corn, which she is holding up. What relation she bore to the god we are nowhere told ”

“ Divine honours were given to Silenus in Arcadia, and from him the Fauns and Satyrs are often called Sileni.
The Satyrs, also gods of the Country, were considered as mischievous, and inspired by their appearance, great fright in the shepherds—although they bore with them a flute or tambourine, to make the nymphs dance, when they inflamed their senses by the burning nature of their harmony, and the rapid measure with which they trod to the music of these demi-gods. ”

“ The Isis temple of Denderah was certainly oriented to Sirius; the Hathor temple was as certainly not so oriented. And yet, in the restorations in later times (say, Thothmes III.—Ptolemies) , the cult has been made Sirian, and the references are to the star which rises at the rising of the Nile.
So far, then, mythology is with me; but there is a difficulty. According to the orientation theory, the cult must follow the star ”

“ He took her to Sidon. He left her—he left her and her child. Troop your way with speed to Sidon. Solve the story which I tell you. Bring me answer from Phœnicia.'
The spirits of the deep bent low their shadowy forms; one by one quickly snatched a grain of burning incense from the altar fire, placed the sparks upon their awful brows, rose together, met the storm-wind howling fiercely, passed it faster than conception, skimmed the foaming crests of billows, swooped again o'er struggling biremes [Pg 161] with their crews of doomed seamen. ”

“ The belief in some such creature seems to have been widespread; the myth of the Sirens is, for example, very similar in conception. In Mansfield Parkyns’ “Life in Abyssinia” we read—“There is an animal which I know not where to class, as no European has hitherto succeeded in obtaining a specimen of it. It is supposed by the natives to be far more active, powerful, and dangerous than the lion, and consequently held by them in the greatest possible dread. They look upon it more in the light of an evil spirit, with an animal’s form, than a wild beast; they assert that its face is human.” ”

“ Thy home and Thy dwelling-place, and see me, Thy servant, twisted and gnarled like the roots of a fallen tree. It will be in Thy hands to raise up or cast down, and the wicked are before Thee. Strike, God of Battle, and the raging sea, strike and spare not the wicked, for Thy servant will have waited long."
* * * * * *
Gilchrist, who was now the head of the gangers and preventives, turned on his pillow after Dol Beag had crept out.
"Ay, Mirren Stuart," said he, "Mirren Stuart that rade the Uist pony and laughed at me in my young days—maybe, Mirren, ye will come to my door yet—my back door." ”

“ Quite proud of his provincial success, when Syrus arrived in Rome, he had the courage to challenge to a trial of wits all the poets who adorned the stage. Every one accepted the challenge, and they were every one beaten. The caprice of Cæsar brough out against him, however, a formidable competitor. The dictator had command Laberius, then sixty years of age, to perform in one of his own mimes, which was a disgrace for a freeman, and above all for a knight. ”

“ 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." ”

“ This was the temple where the Moors kept their idols, Mahomet and Apollo; two enormous figures carved in stone. The queen and her daughter, beautiful Sidrat, knelt before the idols praying for protection from the invaders. Suddenly Sidrat felt her hand grasped gently by an invisible hand. At first she was frightened, and then comforted, for she took it as a sign that her prayers were heard. But the unseen friend was Alberich, and not a heathen god. He whispered, “Your gods are dust; I am a messenger from another world, and have come to save you and to teach you to worship the true God.” ”

“ Ans. History mentions only two; Ulys ́ses and Or ́pheus. The first was warned against the danger by the enchantress Circe; he therefore stopped the ears of his companions with wax, and had himself firmly bound to the mast of the ship, by which means he passed the fatal coasts in safety. Or ́pheus overcame them in their own art; for he sang the praises of the gods, accompanying himself upon his lyre, and made such divine melody that the music of the Sirens attracted no attention. The Fates had decreed that the Sirens should live until some one who passed by, had listened to their songs unmoved. ”

“ Sirona placed the lamp in a hollow in the rocky wall at the head of her bed, and then lay down to rest. Light scares away wild beasts and fear too from the resting-place of man, and it kept terrifying thoughts far away from the Gaulish woman.
She contemplated her situation clearly and calmly, and quite decided that she would neither quit the cave, nor entrust herself to the anchorite, till she had once more seen and spoken to Polykarp. ”