The names of the sirens of ancient Greece. Sirens (sirenia) - herbivorous marine mammals

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 they 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 fish tail, or virgins 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.

IN ancient Greek mythology there are still many mysteries left. 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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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 being. 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.

Wise sea team mythical individuals that Orpheus saved by drowning out the fatal voice of the sirens with his powerful, beautiful singing.
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.

SIRENS (in mythology) SIRENS (in mythology)

SIRENS, in Greek mythology, half-birds, half-women, who lured sailors with their singing and destroyed them. They were considered the daughters of the river god Achelous (cm. AHELOY) and one of the Muses or Sterope (cm. STEROPA). Their number ranges from two or three (in Homer) to a huge number in later authors. The Sirens lived on an island littered with the remains of their victims. Odysseus sailed past this island (cm. ODYSSEUS) who, in order to hear their singing, tied himself to the mast, and filled the ears of his companions with wax. During the journey of the Argonauts (cm. ARGONAUTS (in mythology)) the singing of the sirens was drowned out by Orpheus (cm. ORPHEUS). In the classical period, sirens lose their traits of savagery, they are endowed with deep wisdom, it is believed that they sit on each of the eight celestial spheres of the Ananke world spindle (cm. ANANKE (in mythology)) and their singing sounds like the music of the spheres, emphasizing the harmony of the cosmos. In the Middle Ages, sirens are represented as undines or mermaids, with a fish tail.

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

See what "SIRENS (in mythology)" are in other dictionaries:

- (Sirened, Σειρη̃νες). Sea maidens, who were considered three and who attracted sailors with their singing in order to destroy them. According to legend, they lived near Scylla. Odysseus escaped from them by ordering to tie himself to the mast of the ship, and ... ... Encyclopedia of mythology

Sirens ... Wikipedia

Sirens (myth.)- Sirens. Fragment of painting of a red-figure stamnos: Odysseus' ship and sirens. OK. 475 BC British museum. London. SIRENS, in Greek mythology, half-birds, half-women, who lured sailors with their singing and destroyed them. IN figuratively –… … Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

SIRENS, in Greek mythology, half-birds, half-women, who lured sailors with their singing and destroyed them. In a figurative sense, seductive beauties, enchanting with their voice ... Modern Encyclopedia

In Greek mythology, half-birds are half-women who lure sailors with their singing and destroy them. Portable seductive beauties, enchanting with their voice ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Sirens, in ancient Greek mythology, half birds, half women. According to Homer's Odyssey, with their magical singing, S. lured sailors to the coastal rocks, on which ships crashed. Odysseus, in order to save his companions, covered their ears with wax, ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

I in Greek mythology, half-birds, half-women, who lured sailors with their singing and destroyed them. In a figurative sense, seductive beauties, enchanting with their voice. II order of aquatic mammals. The body is torpedo-shaped, the forelimbs ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Latin siren, from Greek seiren). 1) fantastic creatures of Greek mythology, half-fish, half-maidens, who lured sailors sailing by with their singing; in the figurative sense of a woman seductress. 2) an animal from the order of cetaceans. Dictionary… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (SeirhneV, Sirenes) in Greek mythology, sea muses, personifying a deceptive but charming sea surface, under which sharp cliffs or shallows are hidden. The first mention of S. are in the Odyssey. They live in the west, on the island ... ... Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

John V ... Wikipedia

By the number of "water women" in the first place, you can safely put Ancient Greece. Plato once joked that the Greeks are very much like frogs sitting around a pond, since the vast majority of their cities are located on mediterranean coast. It is not surprising that the mythology of this people is closely connected with water.

The most harmful and unusual of the "water maidens" were considered. - mythical female creatures, female birds or who, with their singing and enchanting music lure sailors and ruin them. live on one of the uncomfortable, lifeless islets of Anfemoesse near Sicily. They were the offspring of one of the sea gods - either Phorkis, or Achelous (which is more likely) - and one of the muses, who probably hid her motherhood due to the nature of her daughters.

In the beginning they were all beautiful women. According to one of the legends, the sirens were turned into birds by Aphrodite, enraged by their pride and arrogance. According to another myth, the Muses awarded them with a bird's body because, proud of their beautiful voices, the sirens challenged the Muses to a singing competition. According to another version, the sirens were originally nymphs surrounded by the young goddess Persephone. When their mistress was kidnapped as his wife by the ruler of the underworld Hades, her angry mother, the goddess of fertility Demeter, gave the beautiful maidens a birdlike appearance. Finally, in another version, they themselves wanted to turn into birds in order to find Persephone, and when people did not help them, they moved in despair to a deserted island and began to take revenge on the entire human race. The sweet-voiced singing of the siren lured sailors to coastal cliffs and they were killed on the shore. Their voice was so beautiful that not a single person could resist; all the rocks of the island were strewn with the bones of their victims.

In ancient times, sirens were perceived in the same way as the muses of another world. They were often carved on stone tombstones in the form of death angels singing funeral songs to the sound of a lyre. In the Middle Ages, sirens were very popular as symbols; they were widely used in the coats of arms of noble families. They were depicted not only with bird features, but also with a fish tail and even with the body of a four-legged animal.

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. Sirens are traditionally depicted more as birds with female heads 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 English poet of the 16th century E. Spencer interpreted the meaning of this myth in the sense that mermaids symbolize temptation: "sorceress girls" were endowed with fish tails as punishment for their "arrogance" in competition with the muses.

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 humanoid sirens by summarizing the escort of souls to the realm 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.

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 take care of the drowning wife are sung by sailors (this feature is also inherent in some mermaids, and not only in classical 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 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 sixth century, a siren was caught in North Wales and christened, and in some old calendars she is listed as a saint under the name of Mergen. Another siren in 1403 slipped through a gap in the dam and lived in Haarlem until her death. No one could understand her speeches, but she learned to weave and, as if instinctively, worshiped the cross. A chronicler of the sixteenth century claims that she was not a fish, because she knew how to weave, and was not a woman, because she could live in water.

IN English language different classic siren and mermaid with fish tail. The creation of the image of a mermaid may have been influenced by tritons, minor deities in the retinue of Poseidon.

In the tenth book of the "Republic" of Plato, eight sirens control the movement of eight concentric celestial spheres.

Do sirens really exist? It is unlikely that anyone will be able to give an exhaustive answer to this question. In the myths of the peoples of the world, sirens have a different appearance. Sometimes the siren was called the "soft water snake", the fairy Melusina or the lake siren.

Sirens in the Renaissance were also called coquettish naiads - nymphs of rivers, streams and lakes. The image of these sirens began to appear in ballet performances, and the artists preferred to “undress” them.

Apparently, they were really beautiful after all. And maybe there is?

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Beautiful sirens, it's nice to hear them. But how insidious are these residents sea island. Like many images of ancient Greece, girls with bird wings and fish tails have outlived their time. 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.