Sirens — Poem of the Week

The sirens of Greek myth were not fish-woman hybrid but bird-woman. They had wings and chicken or bird feet. Over time they became conflated with the idea of mermaids, but originally they were bird-women.

In the Greek story of Odysseus’ travels, he escapes from the witch Circe who warns him about the Sirens he will have to pass. They lure boats onto their rocks and then any survivors will starve to death. So Odysseus takes Circe’s advice and has his crew plug their ears with wax and chain him to the mast of the ship. One might ask, why not just plug everyone’s ears, then sail on by? Perhaps that would make a less interesting story.

Anyway they sail past the Sirens, and Odysseus is tortured by desire for the songs he hears. Rather than this being about sensual enticement, the songs are those praising his past deeds and speaking of what he will accomplish in the future.

I guess the message is that if you live on your laurels, you will starve to death. And if you know the future, perhaps you take it all as a foregone conclusion, and also starve to death, perhaps for lack of interest in your life’s work.

The Sirens were also supposed to be able to paralyze with their song, which might explain how ships ended up on their rocks. The moral of that being that if you spend too much time navel-gazing, you won’t be paying attention to what’s going on in your life, and you’ll crash.

Of course, it’s tempting to want to know what the future will bring. We can hardly blame people for being interested in the subject. But most stories about learning one’s future have a bad end. Odysseus might be the exception, and then only because he resisted temptation in the form of chaining himself to the ship’s mast.

The Audubon Society has a nice article about Odysseus and the Sirens, which also has some details of a painting of the bird-women flying about a chained Odysseus. This week’s poem is from the point of view of the Sirens.

Sirens

We warn, we cajole.
You can’t our voices un-know.

Drawn in from afar
even tall ship spars
grow weak, lay low,
even wood reacts so.

We freeze, petrify.
You can’t our sound classify.

How many lessons of loss
did you mistake for gloss?
Tricks to make you forego
out grotto’s lush outflow?

We coax and we woo.
Our songs cut right through.

Crafty, sly Odysseus
couldn’t pass us oblivious,
not even that fox, locked
& chained, could us block.

We call, and we tempt.
No man is exempt.

If you enjoyed Sirens

You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.  

Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.