The Sirens

Emerging from the Underworld, Odysseus and his few remaining men returned to the island of Circe to learn from her that they were about to begin the most dangerous part of their journey.

According to Circe they must sail past Sirens’ island, who were sea nymphs, and whose songs drew men to a watery grave. The Sirens (Greek: Σειρηνες) were maidens of Persephone, who were transformed to birds by Demeter, Persephone’s mother, in order to assist in the search for her daughter who was abducted by Hades the God of Underworld.  

After their failure to find Persephone they settled on the island of Anthemoessa, which according to Homer was situated between Circe’s island and the rock of Skyla. It is not known with certainty where the island of Anthemoessa was located.  As Capo Circeo was on the north end of the bay of Napoli and Skyla was further south the likely candidates were either the island of Ischia or Capri in the Campania region of Italy.  

When Odysseus and his companions passed by the Sirens and were unmoved by their songs, the legend has it, the Sirens threw themselves into the seas and were metamorphosed into the rocks, as it had been decreed that they should live only till some one hearing their song should pass by unmoved.  Some impressive rocks near Capri are likely connected with the legend of Sirens self-destruction.  

Odysseus on the advice of Circe plugs his crew ears with bee wax and ties himself on the mast.  He admonishes his men to keep rowing and ignore his pleas to untie him.

We sailed past the land of the Sirens on the west coast of Italy.  We kept a safe distance and though we did not plug our ears with bee wax or tied Nikos-our skipper-on the mast, no seductive songs reached our ears on our sail to the Aeolian Islands.

Tiresias and the Underworld

We decided against searching for Tiresias, the blind prophet, somewhere at Oceanus which was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, todays Gibraltar, as it required changing our southern course towards the Aeolian Islands.   

Odysseus though reached the Underworld, met Tiresias, and performed the rite Circe taught him, pouring fresh ram's blood on the ground. Tiresias the blind prophet was not the only shade Odysseus encountered in the Underworld, as he spoke to the ghosts of his fallen comrades, including Achilles and Agamemnon.  He also saw Minos, the great king, dispensing judgment; and Tantalus, forever hungering for food just out of reach; and Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again.

Two sets of myths revolve around the cause of Tiresias blindness. The most prevalent one was that the goddess Athena blinded him when he saw her bathing naked.  The other myth states that Zeus called up Tiresias, to mediate on an argument he had with Hera about who was most pleasured during an erotic act - a man or a woman. Tiresias, a man who also lived as a woman for seven years, stated that women experience more pleasure agreeing with Zeus. This angered Hera, who in return blinded him.  Zeus felt badly and gave Tiresias the gifts to prophesize and that of a long life that lasted seven generations. 

While in the Underworld the ghost of Tiresias revealed to Ulysses that Poseidon was angry with him but gave him advice and directions on how to get home to Ithaca safely.  As we did not meet Tiresias we had to rely on ancient and modern navigation methods to find our way and reach our destinations, which I will describe in a future post.  But first we had to sail by the Sirens!