The Sirens (Greek singular: Σειρήν Seirēn; Greek plural: Σειρῆνες Seirēnes) were dangerous yet beautiful creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island many writers have implied that the Sirens were cannibals as well. Sirens were believed to look like women and birds in many different ways, from early Greece that had them depicted as birds with large women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet, later moving on to women having bird legs, with or without wings or tiny sparrows with women's faces and then again changed being seductive women not only with their voices but bodies as well. Roman poets placed them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae. All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks.
Although they lured mariners, the Greeks portrayed the Sirens in their "meadow starred with flowers" and not as sea deities. When the Sirens were given a name of their own, they were considered the daughters of the river god Achelous, fathered upon Terpsichore, Melpomene, Sterope, or Chthon (the Earth). Roman writers linked the Sirens more closely to the sea, as daughters of Phorcys.
The Sirens were called the Muses of the lower world, although in one myth they are challenged to a singing contest with the muses, losing all their feathers where plucked and the muses wore them like crowns. Horrified by losing they plunged into the sea never to be heard from again. It wasn't their only so called down fall some post-Homeric authors state that the Sirens were fated to die if someone heard their singing and escaped them but according to Hyginus, sirens were fated to live only until the mortals who heard their songs were able to pass by them. There have been a few myths featuring the sirens.
The term "siren song" refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad conclusion. It was also said that they sang to the soul and not the flesh making it easier to call people to them.
According to Ovid, the Sirens were the companions of young Persephone. They were given wings by Demeter to search for Persephone when she was abducted. However, the Fabulae of Hyginus has Demeter cursing the Sirens to forever be half bird half women for failing to intervene in the abduction of Persephone, although some say that it was a reward asked by the sirens to be turned so.
There is one so-called "Siren of Canosa" from Italy was said to accompany the dead among grave goods in a burial. She appeared to have some psychopomp characteristics, guiding the dead on the after-life journey. The cast terracotta figure bears traces of its original white pigment. The woman bears the feet, wings and tail of a bird. The sculpture is conserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid.
Although the sirens are pagan when Christianity came along they started to adopt them for their own image of bad temptation. The Early Christian euhemerist interuprited the myth of the sirens to be they prostitutes who led travelers down to poverty and were said to impose shipwreck on them. They had wings and claws because Love flies and wounds. They are said to have stayed in the waves because a wave created Venus.
Their number is variously reported as between two and five:
Aglaope, Peisinoe, Thelxiope and Molpe all daughters of Achelous and Melpomene
Leucosia Her name was given to the island opposite to the Sirenuss cape. Her body was found on the shore of Poseidonia.
Ligeia She was found ashore of Terine in Bruttium.
Parthenope Her tomb was presented in Naples and called "constraction of sirens"
Sirens weren't the only ones in the world with this profession the theme of perilous mythical female creatures seeking to seduce men with their beautiful singing is repeated in the Danish ballad known as "Elvehøj", in which the singers are Elves.
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