Though they are pivotal to Homer’s epic, luring Odysseus with the promise of eternal wisdom, the Greek poet barely described the mysterious Sirens. What might a better understanding of these formless, disembodied feminine creatures contribute to this timeless teaching myth?
Han Tran, a senior lecturer in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Classics, analyzed the classic text and applied her perspective as a blue and green humanist to amplify understanding of the Sirens’ role in the story and as it relates to ancient Greco-Roman society.
“I’m like a detective going back to the source to see what the text actually says, which is also why you want to learn Greek or Roman for yourself—to know what it says in the original language,” said Tran, who has written not only about the Sirens but also about other ancient sea creatures. “When you read the epic itself, it has little to do with how people, tradition and centuries have portrayed them.”
As a starter for Tran, Homer offers no description of the Sirens’ appearance.
“We have no idea what they look like. We don’t even know if they have a body, and of course we don’t hear their song,” Tran pointed out. “Them not having a body and us not hearing the song correlates—a mystery dangled before our eyes, but we never get to the thing itself.”
Homer tells us only that the Sirens live on an island, a rock, and that they are sitting in a green field, a meadow surrounded by heaps of dead men’s bones, noted Tran, while highlighting the juxtaposed imagery.
“In Greek myths, women, young girls—whether you’re talking about Persephone or Medusa—often get raped in fields of blooming flowers. Yet here it’s the inverse, the Sirens are sitting in the middle of this field surrounded by bones—all men’s bones,” Tran said. “And the description that the flesh is still rotting suggests recently dead, evoking the fact that danger is ever-present.”
From Tran’s perspective, this inversion is a nightmare scenario for these Greek males.
“This is women in control, and every time in Greek myths when you have women on their own, not part of the family structure, it’s always the same story: They become a threat,” said Tran. “Homer is not spelling it out for you, but essentially that’s what he’s saying. And we have stories in Greek myth of both boys and girls who choose not to marry, and terrible things happen to them.”
The fact that these women, and that the Sirens, like Scylla, Charybdis, the Gorgons, Medusa and other female creatures, don’t conform crystallized a fear in ancient society of women who did not fit the social model, according to Tran.
“What would they do if they’re not in a marriage? They’re not part of a family, not the mother, what else could they be? They must be dangerous because there’s no alternative to being a mother or a wife,” she asked rhetorically.
While the Sirens are not described physically, Circe—Homer’s deceitful witch and a central figure in the story—detailed their impact on the social world: Men who hear the Sirens will never return home to their wives and children.
“And it’s always ‘he’—the Sirens affect only men,” Tran emphasized. “The men who hear (them) will not return to their proper place in society as head of the household, husband and father. Homer doesn’t say this; you have to infer.”
“Green” or environmental humanities is an interdisciplinary field that examines how human culture, narratives and values shape our relationship with the natural world. “Blue” humanities centers water as a dynamic, material and cultural force that shapes human history and identity.
Tran highlighted both perspectives in her analysis.
“First of all, Scylla, a sea monster that lives inside a rock; Charybdis, a whirlpool; and the Sirens—among Odysseus’ dangers—all live in the sea. We can talk about them as silent characters and as physical phenomenon,” Tran said.
In the story, Odysseus has been warned by Circe not to pass too close to Scylla or Charybdis, hence the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.” He has to resign himself to losing six men because Scylla has six long neck tentacles that grab one sailor each.
Odysseus doesn’t tell his men; he loses the six, and it appears he has escaped. But it turns out that he’s brought back to the strait, and this time there’s a tiny rock in the center of the whirlpool and a fig tree growing there, so he chooses to fall in and grab onto the fig tree to save his life, Tran explained.
“He ‘hangs down like a bat’ (Homer’s words), and you see the power of nature. He’s not even trying to escape. By plunging into the whirlpool, he’s implicitly acknowledging that nature is more powerful,” she added. “But then he gets saved by nature as well. If you don’t pay attention to the blue and the green—the tree and ocean—you’re missing a lot.”
The Sirens themselves pose another natural danger, infused with feminine energy.
“Before they get to the island, Homer describes there being this kind of hush in the wind, like the wind stops—almost as if nature is conspiring to make him stop. That’s the one thing the Sirens keep telling him, asking him: Stop your boat and listen to our song,” said Tran.
For most people, the “Odyssey” is a story about resilience and survival. But a close reading reveals not only deeper meaning but also leads to primordial questions and further mystery, she suggested.
“Why did Odysseus (tied to the mast) choose to listen to the Sirens? He didn’t even get to hear the full song—though he heard enough to know that they wanted him to stop. But what’s the problem with stopping the ship? That’s the biggest question, and we’re never told why,” Tran said.
From the perspective of the Greeks, the biggest threat the Sirens pose is that whoever listens to them does not return to their wife and children.
“That alone is the danger. The fact you’re not going back to your family—that’s the problem,” Tran highlighted.
“They don’t question the thing itself that they’re stopping for. Whereas, I think about the thing itself,” she added. “What do the Sirens have to teach me? It’s a different way of approaching the Sirens’ question: What are they beyond the threat that they pose to the male sailors? Is there an ontology of the Sirens apart from their threatening the sailors’ ability to return home to their social self? The fact that Homer doesn’t describe the Sirens may mean that the answer to that question is a ‘no.’”
