Some believe that the Sirens are cannibals who consume the sailors that they lure over. Why the sailors who succumb to this song end up dead is open to interpretation. Those who hear the song can’t resist and are lured to the Sirens location, which ends in their death. Their song is both sad and beautiful, and is said to call to Persephone, asking her to return. While Homer’s tale has two Sirens, other myths have reported between two and five Sirens. The beautiful song caused Odysseus to order that his men untie him, but instead they tightened the ropes and waited until they were clear of the Sirens to release him. They then tied Odysseus to the mast of the boat, as he wanted to hear what the Sirens sang about. Circe had warned Odysseus prior to the encounter about the dangers of the Sirens, and he prepared his men by having them put beeswax in their ears to block out the song. Perhaps the most famous story about the Sirens comes in Homer’s “The Odyssey,” as Odysseus and his men sailed by them. There are multiple myths regarding what happened to the Sirens after Persephone was abducted by Hades, with one saying that Demeter gave them wings to search for her and another saying that he cursed them because they didn’t stop the abduction. The Sirens were originally friends of Persephone. Later portrayals of Sirens made them look like seductive women and minimized their bird features. Some artists drew Sirens that had bodies of birds with the heads of women, while others made them look like women with the legs of birds. Each Siren combined the appearance of a woman and a bird, with the exact appearance varying depending on the artist. It is said that whenever Persephone returns to the underworld - every winter - crops suffer as Demeter weeps.The Sirens were creatures that sang beautifully, luring those passing by to their deaths. The only stipulation was that Persephone had to be reunited with Hades for a certain amount of time each year, a bargain that was sealed when Hades tricked Persephone into chowing down on a pomegranate (the magic of the pomegranate mandated her return to the underworld). The famine threatened humankind and so, after some god-to-god bargaining - after all, the gods couldn't let humans die off who would praise them? - the brothers Zeus and Hades agreed that Persephone could leave the underworld every year to be with her mother. The kidnapping did not go over well with Demeter, the goddess of grain and agriculture, who so mourned the loss of her daughter that she neglected her duties, bringing a great famine to the land. He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot, and drove away as she wept. He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge. So there's no sense in the ancient stuff, that I know, that he's somehow lost out and he's angry or something." "He was presented in this poem, " The Hymn to Demeter," as being a good catch, because he's rich and he's related to Zeus. He's the one who can kind of control what comes out of the earth. "The fact that he's connected also with Persephone, who's connected with fertility and crops, gives you the impression that he's got a pretty good deal. Martin, a professor of classics at Stanford University and the author of " Classic Mythology: The Basics" and several other books and articles on Greek, Latin and Irish literature. "He has this other name - Pluto - which means 'the rich one,'" explains Richard P. In fact, people ended up naming the underworld after him. Poseidon assumed control of the seas.Īnd Hades ended up with a mixed bag, ruling over both the dead and everything under the earth, including seeds, grains, gold and silver. Afterward, these new gods - the Olympians - split up the cosmos: Zeus, god of sky and the heavens (among other cool gigs), became king of the gods. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, earned that status by knocking off the old-guard gods, the Titans, in a 10-year war known as the Titanomachy. Still, Hades was a god and therefore commanded some respect from the Greeks.
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