SIRENS, in Greek mythology, the daughters of Phorcys the sea-god (Gr. /apCives), or, in later legend, of the river-god Acheloos and one of the nymphs. In Homer they are two in num ber (in later writers generally three) ; their home is an island in the western sea between Aeaea, the island of Circe, and the rock of Scylla. They are nymphs of the sea, who lured mariners to destruction by their sweet song. Odysseus, warned by Circe, escaped the danger by stopping the ears of his crew with wax and binding himself to the mast until he was out of hearing (Odyssey xii.). When the Argonauts were passing by them, Orpheus sang so beautifully that no one had ears for the Sirens. After one or other of these failures they drowned themselves. When the adventures of Odysseus were localized on the Italian and Sicilian coasts, the Sirens were transferred to the neighbourhood of Neapolis (Naples) and Surrentum, the promontory of Pelorum at the entrance to the Straits of Messina, or elsewhere. The tomb
of one of them, Parthenope, was shown in Strabo's (v. p. 246) time at Neapolis, where a gymnastic contest with a torch-race was held in her honour.
Perhaps the most reasonable explanation of the Sirens is that they are soul-birds; i.e., winged ghostly figures who fetch the living to join them. They are in this respect not unlike the Harpies (q.v.) ; so Weicker. In early art, they were represented as birds with the heads of women ; later, as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings.
See H. Schrader, Die Sirenen (i868) ; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie (1894), pp. 614-616; G. Weicker, Der Seelenvogel in der alter Literatur and kunst (1902) (Bibl.), and in Roscher's Lexikon, art. Seirenen.