The beat of the waves, pounding, incessant. The sailors are hungry, exhausted, dreaming of comforts, women, soft places to sleep. The voices seem unreal at first. Women’s voices, sweet and sad. The sailors look to one another, unable to believe... but there! From that island. The voices sing: “‘Come hither… stay thy ship that thou mayest listen to us… until one hears the sweet voice from our lips. Nay, he has joy of it, and goes his way a wiser man. For we know all the toils… endured through the will of the gods, and we know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth.” “δεῦρ᾽ ἄγ᾽ ἰών… νῆα κατάστησον, ἵνα νωιτέρην ὄπ ἀκούσῃς… πρίν γ᾽ ἡμέων μελίγηρυν ἀπὸ στομάτων ὄπ᾽ ἀκοῦσαι, ἀλλ᾽ ὅ γε τερψάμενος νεῖται καὶ πλείονα εἰδώς. ἴδμεν γάρ τοι πάνθ᾽... θεῶν ἰότητι μόγησαν, ἴδμεν δ᾽, ὅσσα γένηται ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ.” No, they do not eat the men. Nor do they have fish tails, for they are not ocean nymphs. But the men, enthralled by their voices, beach their ships and never come back. They will listen, enraptured by the sirens’ songs until they die of thirst in delirious bliss. As Odysseus himself was once warned by the goddess Circe: “Whoso in ignorance draws near to them and hears the Sirens' voice, he nevermore returns, that his wife and little children may stand at his side rejoicing, but the Sirens beguile him with their clear-toned song, as they sit in a meadow, and about them is a great heap of bones of mouldering men, and round the bones the skin is shrivelling.” But who are these creatures? For what purpose do they sing? They were not always like this. They were once human — carefree, beautiful companions of the young goddess Persephone, child of the great earth goddess Demeter. But when Hades, lord of the Underworld, kidnapped Persephone and stole her away beneath the earth, these young women did nothing to help her. And when Demeter discovered this betrayal, she transformed them into shriveled, clawed monsters — but left them their lovely human faces and enchanting voices. I imagine that moment. These three beings flush with youth, laughing and gathering wild flowers by a lake in bountiful Sicily. The feeling of immortality and energy, the possibilities of the gorgeous, sun-streaked, green and blue world... Then one is snatched away. What horror the remaining two must have felt! Did they perhaps feel a twinge of relief, too, that they had been left unharmed? Did the cursed creatures choose to flee to the island where they lured sailors to their deaths? Were they made to sing — or did their songs, perhaps, hearken back to the glory of their youth; a magic they could still feel, if only dimly? Perhaps all of us have sung that song. Perhaps the sirens are us: youths trapped in bodies that shrivel and fade, even as we sing out in our sweetest voices.