![]() Ligeia (Λιγεία): She was found ashore of Terina in Bruttium (modern Calabria).Leucosia (Λευκωσία): Her name was given to the island opposite to the Sirens' cape. Her body was found on the shore of Poseidonia.Aglaope (Αγλαόπη) or Aglaophonos (Αγλαόφωνος) or Aglaopheme (Αγλαοφήμη, all to be translated as "with lambent voice"), attested as a daughter of Achelous and Melpomene.Their individual names are variously rendered in the later sources as Thelxiepeia/Thelxiope/Thelxinoe, Molpe, Himerope, Aglaophonos/Aglaope/Aglaopheme, Pisinoe/Peisinoë/Peisithoe, Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia, Raidne, and Teles. Bunte) Eustathius (Commentaries §1709) states that they were two, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia An ancientvase painting attests the two names as Himerope and Thelxiepeia. Seirenas) Hyginusgives the number of the Sirens as four: Teles, Raidne, Molpe, and Thelxiope (Fabulae, praefat. Evelyn-White) Suidas gives their names as Thelxiepeia, Peisinoe, and Ligeia (Suidas s.v. 562) Apollonius followed Hesiod gives their names as Thelxinoe, Molpe, and Aglaophonos (Scholiast on Homer's Odyssey 12. §246, 252 Servius' commentary on Virgil's Georgics iv. 18) or Parthenope, Ligeia, and Leucosia (Eustathius, loc. In the Odyssey, Homer says nothing of their origin or names, but gives the number of the Sirens as two. Later writers mention both their names and number: some state that there were three, Peisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepeia (Tzetzes, ad Lycophron 7l2 Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E7. Their number is variously reported as from two to five. Roman writers linked the Sirens more closely to the sea, as daughters of Phorcys. Sirens are found in many Greek stories, notably in Homer's Odyssey. In Euripides' play, Helen (167), Helen in her anguish calls upon "Winged maidens, daughters of the Earth (Chthon)." Although they lured mariners, the Greeks portrayed the Sirens in their "meadow starred with flowers" and not as sea deities. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing but from their silence certainly never."Īlthough a Sophocles fragment makes Phorcys their father, when Sirens are named, they are usually as daughters of the river god Achelous, with Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope or Sterope. In 1917, Franz Kafka wrote in The Silence of the Sirens, "Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. The first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder discounted Sirens as pure fable, "although Dinon, the father of Clearchus, a celebrated writer, asserts that they exist in India, and that they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces." In his notebooks Leonardo da Vinci wrote of the Siren, "The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners." Later Sirens were sometimes depicted as beautiful women, whose bodies, not only their voices, are seductive. The tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda says that from their chests up Sirens had the form of sparrows, below they were women, or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women's faces. Birds were chosen because of their beautiful voices. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps. In early Greek art, Sirens were represented as birds with large women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Sirens were believed to combine women and birds in various ways. This could be connected to the famous scene of Odysseus being bound to themast of his ship, in order to resist their song. one who binds or entangles through magic song. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Others connect the name to σειρά ( seirá "rope, cord") and εἴρω ( eírō "to tie, join, fasten"), resulting in the meaning "binder, entangler", i. e. The etymology of the name is at present contested. Robert S. 7 Christian belief and modern reception. ![]()
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