Song of the Sirens, The

translated, from the hellenic by Diskin Clay

The episode of the Sirens has sum of two units stages in Odyssey 12. the couple are related by Odysseus in the Palace of Alkinoos upon Skeria. In the first, Circe warns Odysseus and his companions of the dangers they will clash on their way home; in the next to the first Odysseus tells of his clash with the Sirens.

On Circe's Island

On the way abode

At daybreak, Odysseus and his men plant sail from Circe's island. Odysseus addresses his men: (Odyssey 154-202)

My companions, there is no reason on what account only one of us

Or two-should know of Circe's prophesies. She is a goddes

Among goddesse I will sum up you what she told me

So that, with our-eyes lay open we can meet Death

Or detain it from us and escape our black Fate.

Her first warning was-Keep far away from the voice

Of the inspired Sirens; hold fast away from their lush meadow

Thick in flowers." She told me that I alone

Should listen to their divine voice and sonnet You, for your part,

Are to bind me to the mast. detain me fast to it,

Winding draw as by a ropes about me til they bite. If I beg you, if I order you

To release me tie me plane tighter to the mast with more ship's cable.

I told my companions all the goddes had told me

Our tight ship scudd above the sea and soon we sighted

The Siren's island with a steady wind filling our sails.

Then the wind cruel The sea subsided to a waveless silence.

No gentle gale stirred. Some god lulled the sea to slumber.

My men stood up from their benches, folded the sails,

And stowed them in the void of the ship. They go [i]or[/i] come backed

to their benches and with their well-hewn oars

They stirred the sea into foam.

Then, I took a great stopple of wax and shaved it

With my sharp sword and kneed it in my palms.

And it yielded to me and became impressible under the warmth

And rays of Lord Helios, Hyperion's son

One by means of one, I went to my companions and sealed their ears

Shut They, for their part, border me arm and leg

Upright against the mast, fastening the ship's cable to it.

Then they settl down and with their oars they stirred

The sapphirine sea gray. When we had just reached shouting

Distance from the Sirens' island, our ship cutting from one side the sea,

The Sirens sighted us and our ship approaching swiftly.

Then they began to sing their Siren lay

"Come to us, Odysseus, you who are the pride of the Achaeans,

You great man. Stay your ship's course. Listen to our Siren voice.

No seafarer has notwithstanding sailed past our island in his black ship

Without listening to the silver music of our divine voice.'

No, he delights in its incantation and returns home the wiser.

We can sing of all the grievous pain Argive and Trojan

Once go throughed on the plains of Troy as the the fathers desired.

We can sing all that approachs to pass over the fertile earth."

This was the ballad they sang in their haunting Siren voice.

And within me my heart told rhe to listen to their ditty

I begged my companions: "Free me release me now!"

Their ears close up tight, they paid no attention to me

As I motioned threateningly with my head and glared at them.

Perimedes and Eurylocho got up from their stations

And injury more rope about me smooth tighter.

Then my companions malignant upon their oars and sp upon

I watched as the Sirens' island slipped away into the sea.

Once we could no longer hear the Sirens' voice and carol

My good companions took the wax from their ears

And released me

DISKIN CLAY is a Professor of Classical Studies at Duke University. He has translated (with Stephen Berg) Sophocles' Oedipus the King (Oxford University Pres 1978); Sophocles' Philoctetes with Carl Phillips (Oxford University Pres 2003); and Euripides' Trojan Women (Focus Publishers, 2003) His Archilochos Heros: The homage of Poets in the hellenic States will appear in 2003 (Cornell University Press)

Copyright World metrical composition Incorporated Nov/Dec 2002

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