Sirens1.0039_Böcklin

Arnold Boecklin, “Sirens,” 1875, oil on canvas, Alte Nationalgallerie, Berlin, AI754.

Classically the Sirens were seductive singers. Like the Lotophagoi and other distractors, Homer's Sirens makes sailors forget their homecoming by distracting them with a song that appeals to the sailors' inner instincts — thus, the song for Odysseus appeals to his great feats at Troy and to his persistent desire to know all things. When the Argonauts sail past the Sirens, the strength of Orpheus' song saves ship and crew by drowning out the seductive song. And in Plato, when Socrates' entrancing ways are likened to the Sirens', the reference is not in the moment sexualized, but his distracting song is described as seductive. (Symp. 216a) The present depiction (at right) suggests that by the time of its conception, the Sirens have acquired properties beyond their classical role.