The New Student's Reference Work/Sirens

Si′rens, sea-nymphs in Greek mythology, who sat on the shores of an island off the southwest of Italy and by their songs lured passing sailors to death. The Odyssey tells the story of Ulysses stopping the ears of his companions with wax and lashing himself to a mast, till they had sailed out of hearing of the fatal songs. The Argonauts also were carried past in safety, because the music of Orpheus had a stronger spell, seeing which the sirens threw themselves into the sea and were turned into rocks. By the Latin poets they are represented with wings, and in art as birds, with the faces of young women. Consult Harrison's Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature.