Sirens you say...er...sing?

We hear about the Sirens before either reader or Odysseus is introduced to them formally. Circe explains to Odysseus how the Sirens beguile men so that they will never want to return to their families.

This sounds really familiar...

1. Like Circe, the Sirens trick men.

2. Like Circe, the Sirens gain their power from how they can keep men.

3. Like the lotus-eaters, their magic makes the men apathetic about returning home.

4. Like Calypso, the promise of some sort eternity. Calypso promises eternal life, while the Sirens promise eternal knowledge.

There are things that are unique about the Sirens.

1. They come in a pair.

2. Odysseus' awareness of possible torment and doom, but his insistence that he listen to them

3. The Sirens calling out to him specifically make them more aware then say, the Cyclops or the suitors, who Odysseus can easily hide he identity from

4. The use of sound, instead of sight, stimulation to attract Odysseus

Sight is really important is the Odyssey. There is the foresight that everyone knows that Odysseus is destined to go to home to Ithaca, and lose his crew, but gain his family back. The poignant scene of when Odysseus can see Ithaca, but he is blow back away from his home. How Odysseus takes the Cyclops' sight for his own advantage.

But, the Sirens entice people with their sounds and language. Though not described as such in Homer, Sirens were half-bird, half-women, and could be sexualized or really really scary. But it doesn't matter which because it is their voices that entice and distract men.

Another but. The Sirens don't trip up Odysseus. There is this supernatural force that could so easily ruin every hope he has of getting home. And finally, Odysseus proves that he can actually be the great tactician and doing something right without first doing a bunch of things to wrong so that he has to do something right. What does this mean?

Maybe we have to look at the form of the poem. It is in the oral tradition, like the sirens' song. Maybe the siren scene is the bard saying "Hey look how entranced you are with me and my story! But remember, at the end of the poem, you have to sail back to Ithaca and slay your own suitors because this is not real life!"

Another point about the sirens' failure to capture Odysseus: girl don't mind, no big deal. Instead of getting hung up on the great and wonderful Odysseus like Circe and Calypso, the Sirens just go back to being Sirens. It is clear they've trapped men before and will do it again. This aspect could serve as a reminder that Odysseus is just one guy. We're reading an epic poem named after him, but all the basic story really is a guy trying to get home. The epic nature of it, is constructed first by our perceptions of this fantastical world as inherently epic and in the form in which we are hearing the story, epic poetry.

-- Emma