What sirens look like in real life. Mythological Encyclopedia: Bestiary: Sirens

V ancient Greek mythology- half-birds, half-women who lived on an island off the coast Southern Italy. With enchanting singing, they lured sailors to their island, put them to sleep, and then devoured them.

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SIRENS

Virgins on the island western sea, located between the island of Kirki and Scylla; they attracted those passing by with their pleasant singing and dragged them into destruction. They sit in a meadow dotted with flowers, and around them lie heaps of male corpses smoldering to the bone, the skin of which is pulled together everywhere. The danger lies only in their singing, as it attracts sailors to the disastrous shore. Nom. Od. 12, 39 sl. They were seen either as seductive muses of the sea, or as acting with the help of the magical power of singing sorceresses, or as a simple fairy tale of sailors, or a moral principle (Welcker III, 164), or bewitching deities, or, finally, demons of decay. Their name matches the word (Sirius), denoting the bringer of heat; both words lead to the same concept, namely, to the concept of light and burning; they are deities of burning, drought. But this is not the yearly return of heat, which denotes Syria, but the tiring heat that kills all living things and is taken for a degenerate of the earth heat (sirocco). Their actions are the silence of the wind, the rotting of the skin. They enjoyed a cult near Surrent, in Aetolia (where their father is called Achela), they were companions of Persephone before her abduction in Sicily. In their most ancient form, they represent a large, clumsy bird with a female head - from where their singing and knowledge come. Already in Alcman they are represented by singing creatures. The sad, mournful nature of their singing suggested comparing their singing with lamentation for the dead (?????????) on the graves. Plato cites them in connection with the harmony of the spheres. Since the time of Alexandrian scholars, S.'s father has always been Aheloy, and among more ancient writers - Fork. Homer mentions only two, while later ones usually accept three S.; their names are Parthenon, Leukosia and Ligeia; or also: Felxiepeya, Molna, Aglaofema. Finally, the Romans associated with them the concept of seduction and temptation (impoba Siren desidia, Horat. sat. 2, 3, 14). When Odysseus rode past them, he covered his comrades' ears with wax, and ordered himself to be tied to the mast with his ears uncovered. Nom. Od. 12, 158 sl. When the Argonauts drove past S., Orpheus sang a response song. Since, according to the prophecy, they could live only until someone passes by them without being seduced, they rushed because of Orpheus or because of Odysseus into the sea and turned into cliffs. A later tradition represented them as creatures whose upper half of the body was female, while the lower half was avian. They received the form of birds in order to search for Persephone. Ov. met. 5, 552 sl. Later they were transferred to Cape Pelorsky or the so-called Sirenusian Islands at the entrance to the Poseidon Gulf or Capreia. Temple S. was at Surrente, and the tomb of S. Parthenons near Naples; the latter had an annual torch race. Art depicts them initially as birds with a female head, then as women with bird legs, and finally as women in long robes. Many images are found on the tombs, either in the form of reliefs or in the form of statues. They are depicted as inspired beings, with a lyre and a flute. cf.: Schrader, die Sirene nach ihrer Bedeutung und K?nstlerischen Darstellung, (1868).

Sirens are mythical female creatures, female birds or mermaids, who, with their singing and enchanting music lure sailors and ruin them.

Sirens came to us from ancient Greek mythology, mainly from the legends of Jason and Odysseus (Ulysses, in Latin). Jason and the Argonauts in Argonautica, written by Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BC), meet the Sirens, the daughters of the Akeloia River and the muse Terpsichore, half birds, half mermaids in appearance. Their singing attracted the Argonauts, and they would have died if Orpheus himself had not enchanted the Sirens with his playing the lyre.

Homeric Odysseus tied his companions to the mast and plugged their ears so that they could not hear the sirens. Homer does not attribute any superhuman properties to them; judging by his poem, there were two sirens. Although Apollonius wrote later than Homer, the myth of Jason ancient history about the Odyssey. The sirens are traditionally portrayed more as female-headed birds than female sorceresses, as some authors have tried to do, referring to Homer, who omitted their description in the Odyssey. Classical writers dealing with this topic have always depicted sirens in the form of birds.

In the "Library" of Apollodorus (I - II centuries AD), the sirens are presented in the form of birds from the waist down, their names are Pisinoe, Aglaope and Telxiepia, they are the daughters of Akelous and the muse Melpomene, one plays the harp, the other plays the flute , the third sings.

The English historian James George Fraser (1854-1941) summarized references to sirens in the works of classical writers. According to him, bird-like sirens are found in Elian (“De natura animalium”), Ovid (“Metamorphoses”), Higinus (“Fabula”), Eustathius (“On Homer’s Odyssey”) and Pausanias (“Description of Hellas”) .

There are either two, or three, or four sirens in different versions. Their father is Akeloi or Forkes, the god of the sea, their mother is Melpomene, Terpsichore or Steropa. Siren names: Teles, Raidne, Molpe and Telksiope, Leukozia and Lygia or Telksione, Molpe and Aglaofonus or Aglaofem and Telksiepia. Apollodorus and Hyginus. it is believed that the sirens died after meeting with Odysseus, and thus the ancient oracle prediction was fulfilled that they would die when the ship passed them unscathed. Other authors claim that they drowned themselves out of vexation.

Another version of the myth is known from a brief mention of the sirens in the Description of Hellas by Pausanias (2nd century AD): in Koronei there was a statue of Hera with sirens in her hand, “since the story says that Hera convinced the daughters of Akeloy to compete with the muses in singing. The Muses won, pulled the feathers from the sirens ... and made themselves crowns from them. The 16th-century English poet E. Spencer interpreted the meaning of this myth in the sense that mermaids symbolize temptation: “sorceress girls” were given as punishment for their “arrogance” in competition with the muses fish tails.

Paintings and sculptures from the Preclassic and Classical eras also depict sirens with bird bodies, and are rather difficult to distinguish from harpies. Sirens were often depicted on ancient classical tombstones and could symbolize the souls of the dead or the spirits that accompany the soul to the god of the underworld, Hades (Hades). Dennis Page, in The Tradition of Homer's Odyssey, suggests that Homer may have come up with a description of his human-like sirens by summarizing the legends of escorting souls to the domain of Hades with legends of female demonic beings who, using their beauty, seduce and then kill men.

The American researcher John Pollard points out that works of art that have come down to us indicate that a number of associations and symbols that have survived in literature are associated with sirens, not counting the images of sirens on tombstones and those that met Odysseus and his companions.

Sirens are depicted next to Theseus, Artemis, Hero, Athena, Dionysus; although most sirens are female, some, especially of earlier eras, have beards. They not only portend death or lead to death, but also deliver unearthly pleasure with their singing and symbolize animal strength.

Almost the only writer of classical antiquity who described the sirens from an attractive side was Plato. In the myth of Er, which ends Socrates' dialogue "On the State", the author presents heavenly music as the singing of eight sirens, one in the orbit of each of the planets and one more in the orbit of the fixed stars.

It is not known exactly when and in connection with what the sirens became associated with mermaids, losing their wings and leaving their nests on rocky islands to dive into sea ​​waves. Perhaps this happened in the Middle Ages in connection with the spread of bestiaries. In Romance and some other languages, the word "siren" and its related forms began to be called mermaids, although the use of this word also indicates the influence of the classical image of the siren.

In the Italian legend "The Siren's Wife", the sirens who save and care for the drowning wife are liked to be sung by sailors (this feature is shared by some mermaids, not just the classic sirens); contemporary Italian writer Italo Calvino, retelling this story, enhanced the effect by writing the words of their song, which, as it were, urged sailors to jump overboard into the sea; siren with a fish tail in the Ligeia by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (in English translation"The Professor and the Mermaid") has a classic name; the "little siren" Eleanor from Jean de Brunhoff's "Zephyr's Vacation" also has a fish tail, she is good-natured and by no means a seductress, and she has no penchant for playing music.

In The Book of Imaginary Beings, Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Margarita Guerero, in a chapter on sirens, note that the difference between a mermaid and a siren is the presence or absence of a tail, but this difference is not always observed in practice. The mermaid in Alfred Tennyson's poem of the same name (19th century) has "silver feet"; The siren featured in the title illustration for William Thackeray's Pendennis, which encourages Pen to leave his lover Laura, has a tail.

Depicted with legs or with a tail, sirens were not as popular in literature as mermaids. Influenced by the legends of Odysseus and Jason, the sirens at first symbolized a man's fear of female sexuality, which cannot be compared with the variety of plots and associations that we find in works about mermaids. Nevertheless, sirens also left their mark on literature and art.

In the three most famous works of literature, sirens are among many other unusual creatures. Dante in Purgatory dreams of a siren, an ugly woman singing of her passion for Ulysses, and as her song flows, she is transformed into a beauty.

Goethe is one of the few writers who depicted a siren with a bird's body, he placed her in a crowd of monsters and minor deities from Greek mythology in the classic scene of Walpurgis Night in the second part of Faust. This scene is a parallel to the "romantic" Walpurgis night of Faustian time in the first part of the tragedy. The sirens from Walpurgis Night symbolize healthy sensuality in a very unusual way for them.

Although the Sphinx accuses them of forcing men to make love in order to tear them apart with their claws, at the end of the siren scene they lead all the actors with a song of victory to Eros, the creator and ruler of all things. In "Ulysses" by the Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941), the odyssey of the novel's hero Leopold Bloom in modern Dublin, the sirens are two barmaids serving golden beer, the sirens seem to be heard singing in the bar.

Sirens are also characters in literary adaptations of the legend of Jason, for example, in William Morris's poem "The Life and Death of Jason" (XIX century) or Robert Graves' modern novel "Hercules. My sailing companion. In Graves' version, the sirens are humans, priestesses of the mother goddess. However, in the poem "Ulysses" Graves portrays the sirens as a symbol of Ulysses' fear of women and at the same time passionate desire.

Many writers used the concept of "siren" not in a literal sense, not referring to supernatural beings, but metaphorically, describing some kind of seductive person. This metaphor is very popular. One of the most clear examples- Ligeia in the story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, which bears the name of a siren and whose beauty leads to the death of the narrator. A hungry man is compared with a siren, who immoderately praises lunch and interrupts his colleagues from work in Chekhov's story "The Siren".

In some works, sirens appear among many other fantastic creatures. Here are two contemporary examples. The Fountain of Magic by Piers Anthony and The Witch's Song by Elizabeth Scarborough are two light comedies featuring sirens among other characters.

Sirens are rarely used as cinematic and stage characters. Walt Lee's Fantastic Film Handbook lists only 10 films with sirens in their titles, half of which are in languages ​​that do not distinguish between sirens and mermaids. We encounter a curious metaphorical meaning of the sirens in The Song of the Siren (1911) with Theda Bara in the role of a singer who was cursed by her father and consequently lost her voice. As a rule, sirens appear in most film versions of the legends of Jason and Odysseus.

In musical works, sirens appear less often than mermaids. The most famous of them is Debussy's Sirens nocturne. Let us also point out some other musical compositions dedicated to the sirens: the opera "Siren" by Daniel Auber, the symphony "Siren" by Reinhold Gliere, the symphonic poem "Song of the Siren" by Deems Taylor.

In painting and graphics, artists sometimes depict women as sirens with human legs. In Siren by John Williams Waterhouse, a woman has scaly legs from her calves as she watches a drowning man. In his painting “Mermaid”, the woman has a fish tail and is depicted alone. Daniel Maclise, who illustrated the book of the English romantic poet Thomas Moore "The Origin of the Harp", painted a siren with legs, she mourns the lost love; we see the same siren in his engraving, but it already has a tail.

The artists whose native language does not know the difference in the designation of mermaids and sirens, both are often depicted with tails. This can be seen, for example, in Paul Delvaux's Sirens at Full Moon. Extremely rare in fine arts there are sirens with a classic bird likeness; one of the few such examples is Armand Point's painting The Siren. Sirens are still not very popular in our time.

Mermaids attributed most of fantastic functions, and their predecessors, the sirens, were left with a metaphorical role. In addition to the symbolic meaning of beauty and a beautiful voice, they sometimes give their name to the much less musical sirens that warn of attack, or to the animals of the siren squad - manatees, dugongs, sea cows (an extinct species), which from afar were sometimes mistaken for mermaids.

The Roman writer Suetonius, in his essay On the Life of the Twelve Caesars, considers the emperor Tiberius stupid because of his passionate interest in mythology. Tiberius, for example, baffled his interlocutors with questions about what the sirens were singing. The chronicler Thomas Browne in his work "Hidriotaphia, or the Burial Urn" notes: "What song the sirens sing or under what name is Achilles among women - these riddles no one is able to solve."

Beautiful sirens, it's nice to hear them. But how insidious are these residents sea ​​island. Like many images ancient greece, girls with bird wings and fish tails have outlived their lives. But what do you really know about sirens?

Sirens and Odysseus

Sirens are mentioned for the first time in the Odyssey. It describes only two sirens who lived on an island in the sea. It was predicted to them that they would certainly die if at least one ship passed by them, and its crew remained alive. Therefore, the siren sisters regularly drowned everything that floated by. But the ship of Odysseus passed by, which filled the team's ears with wax, and ordered himself to be tied to the mast, and the beautiful creatures died. They threw themselves into the sea and turned into cliffs. Later authors settled the Sirens near Sicily. True, each of them chose his island. The number of sirens also changed frequently. Sometimes there were three of them, sometimes seven.

The image of a siren in mythology

At first, sirens were described in myths as wild chthonic creatures. But gradually, when the period of classical antiquity began, they began to be described as sweet-voiced beauties. As often happens with antiquity, there were several options for why the sirens looked like this, and not otherwise. According to one version, they were companions of Persiphone, but when Hades abducted her, they began to wander aimlessly until they appeared in the lands of Apollo. There, Dementra, Persiphone's mother, turned them into such creatures because they did not help her daughter. According to the second version, she did this so that the sirens could find the missing person. And in the third version, Aphrodite herself is involved, who gave them such a look that the sirens could not get married. The appearance of the sirens is always zooanthropomorphism. The second part of their body is either a fish tail, or paws like birds, or with a fish tail and wings on the back. Once, on the advice of the cunning Hera, the sirens and the muses staged a singing competition. The Muses won, after which they plucked the losers and made themselves wreaths from their feathers.

Sirens are not only in myths

The image of the sirens did not remain only in ancient legends. In the Middle Ages, it was often mixed with the image of mermaids. In the era of romanticism, sweet-voiced beauties are filled with refined beauty, they are often painted by artists, they often fall into the poems of poets. There was also a name - Siren. In 2014, the drama Siren was released, where the main role was played by Fiery Katniss from The Hunger Games. Of course, these days, sirens often turn out to be characters in fantasy computer games. So in the game "The Witcher 3, Wild Hunt" there is a funny moment. Arriving on the Skellige Islands, someone tells the protagonist Gerald about a sailor who wanted to hear the sirens. And like Odysseus, filled the team's ears with wax. Therefore, the whole ship crashed against the rocks, because no one heard his cry of danger. In the game, the sirens look like pretty girls for the time being, then they take on their true appearance.

A siren is a bird with a female head. In myths, she is known as the seductress of sailors. The attributes of the sirens are lyres and flutes - musical instruments that personify sensual temptation.

Siren symbolizes temptation, seduction by a woman, deceit, deviation of a man from his true goal; seduction by the attractiveness of the transient, leading to spiritual death; a soul caught in sensual temptations. It is also a symbol of a funeral.

In Egypt, siren birds were considered souls separated from bodies. In Greek mythology, these are evil souls thirsting for blood.

Sirens are considered much more dangerous than their mythological mermaid counterparts: they tempt people with beautiful singing in order to destroy them.

In Slavic mythology, the analogue of the sirens, but much more positive, are the prophetic bird-humans - Sirins (Sirin, Alkonost, Gamayun), who can predict the future and cause rain.

Sirens (Σειρήνες), in Greek myth-making, demonic creatures, sea muses, personifying a deceptive but charming sea surface, under which sharp cliffs or shallows are hidden. The Sirens were born by the river god Achelous and the Muses: Terpsichore, Calliope (Apollonius of Rhodes, IV 892-898), Melpomene or the daughter of Sterope (Apollodorus, I 3, 4; I 7, 10).

The sea god Phorkis was also considered the father of the sirens, and Gaia was the mother. According to Homer, there were two sirens; later three sirens were named, whose names were Peisinoe, Aglaoth and Telxiepeia or Parthenope, Ligeia and Leukosia. In Greek tradition, it is believed that Demeter turned the sirens into demons because they did not come to the aid of Persephone when Hades abducted her. Some Greek authors claim that Aphrodite did this because they neglected love. Once the sirens were called to a competition in the singing of muses. The victorious Muses plucked their feathers and wore them as decoration, so the sirens could not fly. They lived on an island littered with the bones and withered skin of the victims of their sweet singing.

Sirens are first mentioned in Homer's Odyssey. They lived in the west, on an island between the land of Circe and Scylla, and here, sitting on a flowering coastal meadow, with enchanting songs they lured travelers passing by, who, forgetting everything in the world, swam up to magical island and perished along with the ships. Only thanks to the warning of Circe, Odysseus escaped the insidious sirens. He ordered to be tied to the mast of the ship and ordered to fill the ears of his comrades with wax (Homer, Odyssey, XII, 39; XII 166-200).

In post-Homeric legends (for example, in Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, IV, 893), sirens were portrayed as virgins of wonderful beauty, with a charming voice; with the sounds of their songs, they lulled the travelers, and then tore them apart and devoured them. When the Argonauts sailed past the island of the Sirens, Orpheus drowned out their voices with his singing and playing the lyre; one of the Argonauts Booth rushed to their call into the sea, but was saved by Aphrodite, who settled him in Lilibea (Apollonius of Rhodes, IV 900-919). In post-Homeric myths, sirens were represented as winged maidens, or women with a fish tail, or maidens with a bird's body and chicken legs. This last attribute they received at their own request, so that it would be easier for them to search through the seas and islands for their missing friend Persephone, after they had searched for her in vain on earth.

It was predicted to the Sirens that they would die when any of the travelers passed by their island without succumbing to temptation; therefore, when the ship of Odysseus sailed past them, they threw themselves into the sea and turned into cliffs. Late ancient authors located the island of the Sirens near Sicily and called as such either the Sicilian Cape Pelor, or Capreia, or the Sirenusian Islands, or the island of Anthemusu. Sirens were brought together with harpies and ceres; they were even perceived as muses of another world, they were depicted on tombstones. In classical antiquity, wild chthonic sirens turned into sweet-voiced wise sirens, each of which was located on one of the eight celestial spheres of the world spindle of the goddess Ananke, creating with its singing the majestic harmony of the cosmos (Plato, Timaeus, X 617). In the ancient Italian city of Surrent there was a temple of the sirens; near Naples they showed the tomb of the siren Parthenope.

There are still many mysteries left in ancient Greek mythology. Among them is the mystery of the appearance and existence of sirens. These marvelous creatures of divine or demonic origin leave a double impression. They are beautiful nymphs with a charming voice, but bloodthirsty and merciless.

creature mythology

Myths say that the siren is a woman, very similar to nymphs. They were on an island in the sea and lured passing sailors. Charming girls sang songs of extraordinary beauty, complementing the melody by playing the lyre and other tender musical instruments. Their song became so attractive that the men could not resist the temptation to swim closer to the beautiful creatures. Their brains completely fogged up, they did not see anyone and nothing around them, they were drawn with great force to the island.

But then they were disappointed: on the way to the shore, the ship hit sharp, merciless rocks, underwater reefs and shattered into pieces. The whole island, on which the sirens were located, was littered with the bones of former sailors and captains, the wreckage of their ships.

According to some reports, Zeus gave the wonderful sirens the island of Anfemoessu. It was located between the possessions of Circe and Sicily. It was a rather rocky sea area, which was of little interest to people. They preferred to swim past it (before the creatures settled on it).

They had an agreement with the gods - as soon as at least one mortal swims past their shore and does not die from their singing, then they themselves must die. Odysseus later turned out to be such a mortal.

The number of sirens that existed is not known. It varied from 2-3 to tens. People interpreted the image in different ways. They carved their images on tombs and headstones, considering them to be angels of death who sing sad funeral songs to the lyre.

This is a struggle for survival, rivalry and predatory power. Beautiful singing should alert the traveler, poisonous flowers are also very beautiful and smell good. Not in vain in modern world The signal that indicates a threat is called a siren.

There are always sirens at sea. This is due to the fact that the sea disarms the traveler, tiring him, which is why men succumb to their trick. For them, this is something new, unusual in a series of gray everyday life. They have long lost the habit of female affection, it is difficult for them to resist beautiful girls with wonderful singing.

Appearance

Exact descriptions of the appearance of mythical creatures differ slightly: some say that it is very beautiful girls with wings and bird paws with large claws. Others - that this is a creature whose upper body is human, and the bottom is similar to the tail of a fish. They have long hair, a beautiful figure, a gentle voice that they inherited from their mother.

In folklore, the image of a mysterious siren denotes the collective features of women who are too unpredictable.

The fact that these creatures possessed extraordinary beauty is not just that. You should never believe the shell, the vessel may be beautiful on the outside, but completely empty inside. Sirens are characterized by variability of character, tenderness and deceit, fragility and power. The following parts of the body symbolize the animal principle in them:

• tail;
• scales;
• claws;
• feathers;
• wings.

Origin legends

In mythology, the image of a siren is quite common, so there are many legends, myths, tales about their origin and mode of existence:

1. One of the ancient hypotheses says that the sirens were created by the deity Phokias by natural fusion with Caliope, Melpomene or Terpsichore. This assumption justifies their unnatural attractiveness and alluring voice.
2. The second legend says that sirens are previously ordinary earthly girls who showed their proud disposition and inaccessibility, which terribly angered the goddess of beauty. As punishment, she turned them into birds. They were very angry with the men and tried to take revenge on them in the depths of the sea.
3. There is an idea that having a wonderful voice, the nymphs became arrogant and were not afraid to challenge the muses to a competition. They lost it and were punished by exile to an island in the middle of the sea in the form of sirens. It was Demeter who turned the young nymphs into birds.
4. Has the right to exist and the version in which the nymphs were created to serve the young goddess Persephone, but the evil Hades decided to kidnap Persephone so that she could live with him. The young nymphs could not forgive themselves for not saving their mistress. They searched for her on land in every place they could, but could not find out exactly where she had disappeared. Quite desperate, they came to Demeter, the mother of the missing goddess. She was in deep despair and endowed the young nymphs with wings and fish tails so that they could find her daughter. They did not have enough strength to search. They decided to ask people for help, but they refused. They remembered this ignoble act, settled on an abandoned island in the middle of the ocean and promised to take revenge on all men, dooming them to death.
5. There is even one version that looks like fantasy in mythology, which few people know about. The Universal Mind decided to create an experimental living creature. He wanted to create a man, but he did not succeed the first time - a siren appeared, something between a woman and a bird. This did not stop the experimenter. From the second time he managed to create a person, and he no longer needed a siren. He destroyed all the sirens, but the exact number of nymphs created was not known, so there was a possibility that not all of them were destroyed. A few of them remained, they lived on uninhabited by people island and sang sad songs, envying the man.

Who managed to escape from the sirens

Almost all Greek ships sailing near sinister island, drowned, and the crew died. There were also exceptions. Only those who knew about the power of the sirens and how to deal with it could not fall under their power.

1. Wise sea ​​team mythical individuals that Orpheus saved by drowning out the fatal voice of the sirens with his powerful, beautiful singing.
2. Successfully sailed past and comrades, whose commander was Odysseus. He was warned about an imminent meeting with the sirens, so he worried about the safety of the entire team. Ordering that the ears of all members of the ship be covered with wax, he firmly tied himself with ropes to the Greek ship so that he would not be overcome by the desire to rush to the nymphs. And he succeeded. All crew members remained alive and not tempted, the ship did not crash on the reefs. After such a humiliation, the sirens died - they themselves threw themselves off the cliff.

Nobody knows if sirens exist. Lonely sea wolves sometimes hear the wonderful sound of harps on a wild island, but no one will believe them, mistaking it for the plot of a fantasy novel. No need to be skeptical - the world still holds many secrets.