Talk:Siren (mythology)

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Comments

This article as written now is unorganized and confusing, and really appears as a collection of unorganized details. What ought to be done is A) present the salient (main & important) features of the story of the sirens, and then B) present the minor variations on it. As it is now, it is like spaghetti thrown up against the wall.

Please shift "sirens in popular culture" to a seperate article .

WoodElf 11:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense, was looking unwieldy. Should clean up the new article, though Dick G 09:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I though HARPIES were the half-woman half bird while Sirens were akin to Mermaids. When did the mermaid connection happen?--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Originally, Sirens are half-woman and half-bird as depicted during the Odyssey of Ulysses. Later on (like during the obscure medieval ages) they begun half-woman and half-fish. Therefore, shouldn't the introduction be revised to state this disambiguation? Cyarra (talk) 07:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree - It's much easier to look up

That makes sense to me, then you don't have to click on a link that takes you to a separate page, Please do this ASAP - Danmeister

i think the sirens were very interesting characters in greek mythology. i was always a fan of the creatures and theire special "powers" such as medusa & etc.

Related Links

Should this be linked to the Femme Fatale entry? They are both male myths about dangerous females that are not easily dominated.

Odysseus not Ulysses

I'm not sure how to change this, but it should be changed: Although titled correctly in this article, the linked photograph of the painting is titled 'Ulysses and the sirens' instead of the correct 'Odysseus and the sirens'. Someone might want to change that.

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In Homeric poems such as 'The Odyssey' and 'The Iliad' Odysseus is called Odysseus. However, Virgil calls Odysseus 'Ulysses'.

I am pretty sure Ulysses is the latin name, and Odysseus is the translation.

Musica101 18:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It is said....

The following paragraph seems to have a logic error in it:

"It is said that, incensed at having been outplayed, the Sirens flung themselves down into the water and perished. Varying traditions associate this event with their encounters with Jason or Odysseus, though the incident appears in neither Homer's Odyssey nor Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica."

Since no other music was played in the Odyssey, the Sirens must have thrown themselves into the sea for some other reason, such as having failed in their goal. StuRat 06:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Popular culture section

Recently there has been a concerted effort in a number of AfDs to delete a raft of popular culture articles. The separate Sirens in popular culture article was spun off from the main article 18 months ago and subsequently took on a life of its own as a magnet to any number of trivial references. As a result of an AfD nomination, the article has since been cleaned up and drastically shortened. In addition, a number of editors now watch this page, the popular culture page and the Siren dab to keep them free from fancruft, listcruft and general trivia mess. On that basis it would seem more sensible to restore the short paragraphs to this, the main article. Please leave any comments on this proposal either here or at Talk:Sirens in popular culture. The discussion will be left open for a month or so before making any decision. Thanks Dick G 00:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No objections to proposal. Merge completed.Dick G 02:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Problematic passage from intro

This from the intro needs rewriting to make it clear which writers are being talked about, and to remove the implication that certain writers tell the "real" story:

"Later writers have stated that the Sirens were anthropophagous, but this is not supported by classical writings, nor is there any evidence that the Sirens drowned themselves failing to seduce one of the many heroes that passed their way, though that has also become a fixture in retellings of the story."

Dybryd 02:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Its rather misleading indeed. People are confusing sources with authority. Like the statement that "there is no evidence the Sirens drowned themselves" except "in retellings of the story." Well, it is true that the story is only now to be found in late Greek and Roman texts, but if you look at Greek art you can find the "Siren-suicide" scene in works created centuries before any of those writers. In other words, those "retellings" and the art are both sourced from some very old lost Greek work. Because 95% of Greek literature is lost to us, its almost always impossible to distinguish been "authentic" myth and later embellishment. --Theranos 15:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Parthenope

I am quite sure that The Penguin Guide to Classical Mythology says it's the same Parthenope who was a Siren, but if it's a different Parthenope, that would make sense, since the Sirens do not appear to be mortals. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Images

I notice that an editor has recently added this image to the page. The illustration appears to be the editor's own work and is not a classical or otherwise published rendition of the sirens. As such my own view is that it doesn't add much to our understanding of the subject even if it is a competent enough illustration. Is there a policy as to self-made images/illustrations and or the notability of images like this? Or do any other editors have any comments as to the image's inclusion? Dick G (talk) 05:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems the image hasn't lasted long anyway; ignore the above. Cheers Dick G (talk) 01:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually it's back. Previous comment stands - what is the policy on accepting apparently self-made images? Dick G (talk) 05:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The link you posted is also dead, but I noticed the image on the article (was probably re-poster) here. I personally think that this doesn't have its place there, but I'm not sure about the exact policy for it (Etienne, 28 September 2008)

i know im three years late but that ones also dead. cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.209.0.125 (talk) 20:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Popular culture edit

I deleted "LadyParasyte's Sirens and" because 1) there's no article on Lady Parasyte in Wikipedia, and a Google search on her only brought up about 1,500 hits - Therefore, I don't think she should be included in Popular culture. -CaptainJae (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Well first of all of this is bull! Nothing is true about this! The Sirens are three dangerous woman! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.75.216 (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm presupposing that the person who responded here is the same responsible for the "This Whole thing is bullshit" line inserted into the "Sirens and death" section. I'm not a professional editor and have kind of muddled into figuring out how to flag that addition, but I figured I'd post on it here. I'm not entirely certain how to handle that kind of thing; I could delete it, but I don't know the policy so... I'm mentioning it here for someone with more knowledge and skill than I to do so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.55.161.213 (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, nevermind, someone else deleted it. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.55.161.213 (talk) 21:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I have been musing on this and am genuinely openminded as my knowledge of Russian folklore is limited. However it seems to me that what we have is the evolution of a legend across cultures (women who sing and lure men... etc.) and so maybe a single robust page (as there are many more similarities than differences) would be appropriate. I am open-minded about this :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. tentatively, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
2. Absolutely necessary. It's just a spelling difference forked off into a separate article and treated completely differently for no good reason. We don't give a new article to reflect different countries' spellings of the same topic. DreamGuy (talk) 12:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. weak oppose as long as current start-class Siren is not robust enough to digest addition of a fairly long chunk of text. One-paragraph notice on Sirin, perhaps with a single pic, will do fine in Siren, which means all other content of present Sirin will be gone. I'd rather consider merging all invented Slavic birds into a single article. NVO (talk) 05:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
2. weak oppose. I echo NVO's concerns and look to WP:NOTPAPER and WP:PRESERVE. Though based on the Greek Siren (as the article notes), the Sirin of Russian mythology clearly has its own existence outside and beyond the Greek Siren. Merging while preserving all the good content in Sirin would result in a Siren article unduely weighting towards discussion of the Russian myth. Dlabtot (talk) 08:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
3. oppose per Dlabtot, good point. There seems to be enough information in Sirin to merit a dedicated article, and enough cultural distinctivity. But it should certainly be mentioned, summarised, and linked here, as Wetman says. B'er Rabbit (^{Briar Patch}) 12:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
4. oppose - myths from different cultures should not be treated as the same simply because one is developed from the other -- Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas are not the same article, and should not be. And in this case, emphasizing the etymological link to the Greek sirens would obscure what seems to me a clear link to the historically and geographically closer stories of the Persian Pairika, and to the many singing-temptress figures in northern European folklore (Lorelei etc.). Dybryd (talk) 09:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

I suggest that a condensed summary of Sirin be added to this article, with the appropriate hatnote. That's the framework best adapted for future expansions of both subjects.--Wetman (talk) 05:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, will look to it a bit later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hazards To Navigation?

• Could it be possible that Sirens were "aids to memory" to ancient sailors? --Oracleofottawa (talk) 02:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Number of Sirens in Homer

Would someone whose Greek is better than mine double check the reference for there being two Sirens in The Odyssey? I think that this fact might have been derived from the Samuel Butler translation rather than from the text itself. To me it looks as if it rests on a word that doesn't necessarily indicate a pair, and some other translations, including the well-regarded Fagles translation that's currently getting a lot of use among academics, do not indicate that there are two Sirens. --184.78.241.209 (talk) 21:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep, it's two. Od. 12.52 reads: ὄφρα κε τερπόμενος ὄπ' ἀκούσῃς Σειρήνοιϊν., "that you may delight in hearing the voice of the Seirens". The form used here, Σειρήνοιϊν, Seirenoiin, is a dual genitive, meaning "of the two Seirens". — cardiff | chestnut — 21:19, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Doubtful relevance of a Kafka quote

«In 1917, Franz Kafka wrote in The Silence of the Sirens, "Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never."» How is this relevant? It has very little to do with the siren as a mythological being ; at the very least, it should probably be moved from the "appearance" subsection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.249.181.132 (talk) 23:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Siren (noisemaker) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:30, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: rename. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

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• Siren → Siren (mythology)
• Siren (disambiguation) → Siren

– It seemed pretty clear from the RM discussion linked above at Talk:Siren (noisemaker) that there is no primarytopic for Siren, so Siren ought to be a disambig page, and this page should be disambiguated. A new RM is needed here to propose that explicitly, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2014 (UTC) Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support as nom. Dicklyon (talk) 20:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - sorry but I would suggest that page views happen to be right in this case. The basic meaning of siren is siren, not anything named after a siren. This keeps siren (original meaning) and siren (figurative meaning) inline. When someone says "siren" "silver screen" it's clear that an actress is being compared to the original siren, not to an air-raid alarm or police car siren. For once both halves of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC agree. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:57, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. If you ask anyone what a siren is, you're more likely to get the alarm, acoustic instrument, noise maker version than the mythological singing creature. And the pageview stats are meaningless when you're looking at a page already treated as primary, which gets hits for all possible intended targets when someone types siren. Dicklyon (talk) 08:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, not scientific but I've asked four people and they all say siren. What then about the example I gave, when someone says "siren of the silver screen" what do you think of, a siren or an air raid alarm of the silver screen? Or "answer a siren's call" - call of a siren, or noise of an alarm going off.

Or search "album siren" or "book siren" to Google image search, what comes up, album covers with police lights, or album covers and book covers with sirens? In ictu oculi (talk) 12:59, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes of course there are many cases where the mythological siren is what is meant; they might even by somewhat more common in print. But it's ambiguous enough that a primarytopic is not appropriate. Dicklyon (talk) 16:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think of Donald Duck answering the siren's call. [1] And it's not the beastie. But that's just my misspent youth (and adulthood) I guess. Or would you concede Carl Barks as being classical? (;-> Andrewa (talk) 19:44, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree that both criteria line up, but not in the way you suggest. The cultural significance of the device is at least equal to that of the creature; Sirens are an important part of everyday life for most people, worldwide. The usage favours the device, but still not by enough; Ask yourself what someone means when they say I thought I heard a siren and unless we know more of the context, we'd guess it would be the device. Neither of the criteria establish a primary meaning, but both slightly favour the device. Andrewa (talk) 00:50, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

See also #On things named after other things below. Andrewa (talk) 02:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• Neutral for now. I'm a siren (mythological) editor, not a siren (noisemaker) editor, and the former strikes me as more 'encyclopedic' (which could be my bias) but the latter is likely what many less educated readers in Greek classics will think of, so it may have a claim at being more primary because of their abundance. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:11, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
• I oppose the request as per overwhelming pageviews [2] [3](which is a valid criterion for primary topic), since I think "lasting significance" is debatable. I am glad that this was processed as a separate move request. Red Slash 02:23, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support. While page view statistics are one of the criteria, the guideline (see WP:primarytopic) explicitly says they are just one of several that may help (emphasis here as in the guideline). Siren of the silver screen is yet another usage, and when as a young boy I heard the term I can remember wondering how it related to fire engines! Many others would similarly know these two terms who have no knowledge of the mythological creature, so again we come back to the conclusion that there is no primary meaning. Note again, I'm not saying that either of these meanings have primacy over the mythological beastie. They may (and I actually think the warning device certainly does, and the musical instrument, see acme siren, may also... but the latter may of course just be because I'm a percussionist and the siren is one of the more exotic of our charges), but that's irrelevant. The question is, does the mythological beastie have primacy over all other meanings, taken together? This is a very much tighter criterion than just having primacy over each of them individually, and in this case is not satisfied IMO. Andrewa (talk) 19:18, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support as per nominator --Rushton2010 (talk) 23:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support per AndrewA. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation needed

This move has left a lot of links pointing to siren, which is now a disambiguation page. After closing the discussion, I have updated the 3 templates which linked to the mythological sirens ({{Fantasy fiction}}, {{Places visited by Odysseus in the Odyssey}}, {{Characters in the Odyssey}}), but it will take some time for the templates to purge. I have disambiguated a few other links, but a lot of tidying disambiguation is still needed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:46, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

See also Talk:Siren (noisemaker)#Requested move 24 January 2014. Andrewa (talk) 20:12, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

On things named after other things

From the survey: The basic meaning of siren is siren, not anything named after a siren.

I'm surprised and disappointed to see this argument used again [4], and so soon. As I said last time, the argument that something is named after something else is completely contrary to policy, to the point that I'm a bit surprised that it's even raised here by an experienced editor. Where does WP:AT give any support at all to it? [5] Or am I missing something? If so, point it out. Last time, you didn't even reply. Andrewa (talk) 02:03, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Assuming good faith, I think he's just making an assertion. I also think that the basic meaning of siren is siren, not anything named after a siren. I don't think this is because they were named after sirens, but I do believe that that's the case. Red Slash 03:11, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Lorelei

This article could mention the similarity of the sirens to the Lorelei of German folklore, and point out how this is support for the idea of C.G. Jung on a collective unconscious. Vorbee (talk) 08:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Confusing introduction

The closing paragraph of the introduction contains the following:

The Greek philosopher Plato says there were three kinds of sirens- the celestial, the generative, and the cathartic. The first were under the government of Zeus, the second under that of Poseidon, and the third of Hades. (A parallel might be intended here between the three planets, and the deities of the same name.)

Which planets are being referenced here, and how do they relate to Sirens? If this refers to the planets named after the corresponding Roman gods – Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto – this is undoubtedly incorrect. Neptune and Pluto are too distant to be seen with the naked eye, and were only discovered after the development of modern optics.

Furthermore, this division of Siren types doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else in the article, nor is Plato referenced again. The only source is a dictionary on mythology from 1883, which I don't fully trust to provide an accurate picture of how Sirens were viewed in Ancient Greece. Regardless of the accuracy of the claim, it doesn't seem to be necessary information to the understanding of Sirens, and I therefore don't think it belongs in the introduction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.189.140.20 (talk) 19:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

appearance?

"The entry for the "sirens" (Greek: Σειρῆνας)[a] in the tenth-century Byzantine dictionary Suda sirens had the form of sparrows from their chests up, and below they were women or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women's faces."
The photos of depictions mostly are not like that. The statues have wings, but most of the paintings only depict a woman, with nothing animal-like, one has a woman with fishtail (which I thought is a mermaid feature). 109.240.39.10 (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Popular culture

Sirens were also depicted in God of War (2005 video game. Can we add a section? Aminabzz (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Cannibalism or Human Cannibalism?

Should the link in this article for Cannibalism be to Cannibalism or Human cannibalism? Sirens are human-like, but not human. What do people think?

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Siren_%28mythology%29&diff=1211092783&oldid=1210523915

Vajzë Blu (talk) 02:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

The cannibalism page is generally used for zoology (animals of the same species eating each other). As sirens are described as human-like, and given that they are mythological, human cannibalism is a better fit. Swinub (talk) 03:11, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Cannibalism (among animals) is in any case not the best link target, since their victims were certainly humans, right? So if one considers them a kind of humans, the current link to human cannibalism makes sense, but if not, then link and text should be changed to "man-eaters". Either option seems reasonable to me, and not being well-versed in the biology of non-existent creatures, I'll leave the choice to others. Gawaon (talk) 18:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Man-eater seems like a good choice. Even though it sounds sexist. They can eat females too! Vajzë Blu (talk) 18:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: College Composition II

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2024 and 25 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Oliviahowe07 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Oliviahowe07 (talk) 21:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

By the seventh century

It was Apollonius of Rhodes in Argonautica (3rd century BC) who described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird. By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds.

That section really doesn't make sense, the way it's phrased. It makes it sound like the 7th century BC came after the 3rd century BC.Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 14:38, 3 May 2024 (UTC)