SIRENS. — From the Greek Σειρήν, Σειρήν (Lat. sirens, sirena) mythological monsters whose song, accompanied by musical instruments, seduced and attracted men who imprudently listened to it, leading them to ruin (Odyssey, XII, 41-43). The sirens belong to the group of death spirits. Their myth has assumed various allegorical meanings in Greco-Roman classical literature and in Christian literature.
I. IN GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICAL LITERATURE
The myth of the sirens, developed by later writers, is first attested in the Odyssey (XII, 39-54, 158-200), and the most salient feature of the myth centers on the episode of Ulysses, who, to escape their wiles, seals his sailors’ ears with wax and has himself bound to the mast of the ship to hear their song without suffering its dire consequences. Homer speaks of two sirens, but later they become three or four, though the number three remains the most common. The sirens of this group were named: Leucosia, Ligea, and Parthenope. The poet places their abode on an island west of the Mediterranean, not more precisely determined; later, however, various locations in Sicily, Capri, or the rocks between that island and the Sorrentine peninsula were assigned to them. At Sorrento there was a temple in their honor, and at Naples the tomb of the siren Parthenope was pointed out, while in Sicily Leucosia (Cape Poseidon) and Ligea (Terina) were worshipped.
SIRENS — Episode of Ulysses and the sirens, and scene of instruction. The first and third sirens hold musical instruments, the double flute and the lyre, the second makes an oratorical gesture. Portrait of the deceased before the parapetasma supported by two cupids. Lid of a sarcophagus (3rd-4th centuries) from Aguzzano.
SIRENS — Ulysses strikes down the sirens, symbol of victory over the vices they represented in the Middle Ages (cf. Honorius of Autun). Miniature from the *Horatius Deliciarum*, fol. 221v (c. 1230).
Their genius was not always considered malevolent: their musical virtues transformed them into comforters of mortals afflicted by the departure of their loved ones (Euripides, *Hel.*, 168 ff.); their bird-woman aspect led them to be regarded as the soul-bird, the edifice of the deceased; they were also taken as symbols of the soul that has attained its peace and shares in the sufferings of the living after having been the cause of suffering for them. For these reasons, as well as for their powerful apotropaic virtue, they appear so frequently in funerary art. More often, however, the sirens were esteemed as a malevolent obstacle both morally and intellectually; generally regarded as symbols of voluptuousness and the lure of sensual pleasures, they represented for the Neoplatonists the obstacles the soul must overcome to reach its divine homeland, including *propria generatio* and the pleasures of lower culture, *κακομουνία*. Epicurus exhorted his followers to stop their ears and flee at full sail from the encounters with the sirens of poetry, that is, the studies dear to the rival school (cf. texts cited by Zwicker, Courcelle, Marrou, Alfonsi).
II. IN CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
Given the notoriety of the siren myth, Christian writers of all ages, but especially of antiquity, skillfully exploited it to draw immediate moral lessons. It should be noted at once that the mast of the ship to which Ulysses was bound is presented as a symbol of the Cross of Christ. In Christian literature, as in all modern European literatures, sirens commonly symbolize voluptuousness, the invitation to sensual pleasures that lead the soul to perdition; thus the word "siren" is often synonymous with harlot or any woman who flatters and allures. Among the many texts that could be cited in this regard, see, for example, the Latin version of Isaiah (13, 22; the original has jackals); the *Physiologus* (ed. F. J. Carmody, Paris 1939, pp. 75-76); St. Ambrose (*Explanatio in psalmum*, XLIII, 73; PL 14, 1179; *Expositio in Ev. sec. Lucam*, IV, 2; PL 15, 1612; *De fide*, III, 1; PL 16, 614, with reference to the Latin text of Isaiah); St. Jerome (*Adversus Jovinianum*, I, 4; PL 23, 225; cf. also *Commentarium in Isaiam*, VI, 14; PL 24, 216, and other passages by St. Jerome in Courcelle, *cit. in bibli.*, p. 90, n. 2); Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais (*Epist.*, 145; PG 66, 1542); St. Maximus of Turin (the entire homily 49 is devoted to the episode of Ulysses: PL 57, 339-342); Sidonius Apollinaris (*Epist.*, lib. IX, ep. 6; PL 58, 620); St. Isidore of Pelusium (*Epist.*, lib. V, ep. 185; PG 78, 1435); St. Isidore of Seville (*Etym.*, XI, 3, 30; PL 82, 423, cf. ibid. 83, 1310); Honorius of Autun, *Speculum Ecclesiae*: PL 172, 855-57 (sirens as symbols of avarice, gluttony, and lust); Alan of Lille (*De planctu naturae*: PL 210, 461-462); Dante (*Purg.*, XIX, 7-33). Other authors assigned particular allegorical meanings to the sirens. The pseudo-Justin (*Cohortatio ad gentiles*, 36, ed. J. C. Th. Otto, II, Jena 1879, p. 116) compares the enticing sirens to the eloquence of philosophers against which, if one wishes to be saved, one must stop one’s ears. St. Hippolytus (*Philosophumena*, VII, 13; PG 16, 3294-95) urges the faithful to guard against heretical doctrines so as not to be seduced by them as by the song of the sirens; whoever wishes to know such doctrines should have himself bound to the mast of the Cross of Christ. St. Augustine (*De beata vita*, I, 1-4; PL 32, 559-61) attests that rhetoric was for him the siren that nearly prevented him from reaching the harbor of salvation, that is, philosophy and thus the Faith; he also alludes to the sirens of superstition (*De moribus ecclesiae cath.*, 34; PL 32, 1342). St. Paulinus of Nola (*Epist.*, XVI, 7; ed. G. Hartel, CSEL, 29, p. 121) in turn advises Jovius to flee profane literature as one avoids the “carmina blandimentorum” of the sirens, and to avoid shipwreck he must not only stop his ears but also close his eyes. Clement of Alexandria, while in the *Protrepticus* (12: ed. C. Mondesert - A. Plassart, Paris 1949, pp. 187-88) makes the sirens the symbol of the formidable obstacle of habit and alludes to the island of evil where a wanton courtesan sings, in the *Stromata* (II, 2; PG 8, 941) he says that the word of God in Holy Scripture is as attractive as the song of the sirens. Procopius of Gaza (*Comment. in Genesim*: PG 87, 509-10) compares to sirens preachers who with eloquence announce the truths of religion and praise God. Finally, Celsus says that Christians are called by some “leaping sirens” and liars, but Origen does not know how to account for this accusation (*Contra Celsum*, V, 64; PG 11, 1285).---
*SIRENS — Sirens supporting the sarcophagus of Pietro Riario, work by A. Bregno, Mino da Fiesole, and G. Dalmata — Rome, church of the SS. Apostoli.*
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(photo Alinari)
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### III. Iconography
Homer does not describe her appearance, which was later fixed by lexicographers and schoolmen as well as by very ancient monuments, among which should be noted the ancient vase of the 6th century in the Louvre bearing the inscription Σύγγαμμ (cf. Corpus vasorum antiquorum, Louvre, 111, Hd, pl. 12, 1 [Paris 1923]). Four distinct types of siren are known.
First type: a bird with a woman’s head.
Second type: a female figure down to the waist, sometimes winged, with legs and feet of a bird, either nude or clad in a short chlamys, holding musical instruments (double flute and cithara with plectrum) and in some cases a scroll. These two types appear in Oriental, Egyptian, Greek and Roman monuments: vases, statuettes, stelae, etc. The scene of Ulysses and the sirens, reproduced on the front of a group of 11 lids of Roman, pagan sarcophagi (3rd–4th century AD), must be interpreted in the Neoplatonic sense mentioned above and not, as Wilpert wrongly believed, in a Christian sense (Sarcofagi, I, pp. 14–16; III, pp. 5–7, pl. 24–25, 272, 1). The two above-mentioned types of sirens continued to be used for decorative purposes in Byzantine, Coptic, Muslim, Romanesque and Renaissance art. In the Romanesque period sirens chiefly adorned capitals (cf. list of monuments in Jalabert, pp. 450–57); in the Renaissance they appear as supports for sarcophagi.
Third type: a complete female figure seated on a rock, clad in a chiton and mantle, with lyre, syrinx and double flute; this type is found on Etruscan urns (cf. E. Bruna, I rilievi delle urne etrusche, I, Rome 1870, pp. 121–23, pl. 90–94).
Fourth type: a female figure whose lower half is transformed into a fish with two upward-curving tails. This last type, already noted in the Monstrorum liber de diversis generibus (ch. 8) of the 6th–7th century and in the Bestiaries of the 12th century (cf. Jalabert, pp. 434, 436), is inspired by tritons or nereids and came into fashion from the 12th century onward. It was frequently employed by Romanesque sculptors for ornamental motifs, especially on capitals (e.g. in Jalabert, pp. 458–68), and by illuminators of liturgical books in the interlace of initial letters or in marginal friezes (cf. the examples listed in the catalogues of V. Leroquais [v.], s.V. sirènes in the respective indices). The fish-tailed siren has also been used as a chimerical figure in heraldic shields.
— See pl. XLVI.