1/13/2024 0 Comments The sirens and ulysses![]() The following morning Nausicaä “of the beautiful robes”, daughter of Alcinous the King of the Phaeacians and his queen Arete, travelled in a mule wagon with her handmaids to wash those robes in a river. There he hauled himself out of a river estuary, exhausted and naked, then made his way into a wood, where he fell asleep in heaped leaves. This was wrecked in a storm inflicted by Poseidon, and he swam ashore on the island of the Phaeacians, variously named Scheria or Phaeacia. Odysseus escaped from the island of Ogygia on a raft. This is a stark image of a barren landscape and empty relationship. He would appear to be homesick for Penelope, wishing that he was released from Calypso’s control. Odysseus is at the far left, staring into the distance, although he faces away, so the actual direction of his gaze isn’t seen. In Arnold Böcklin’s Odysseus and Calypso (1883), she’s shown in front of a cave on the beach, holding her lyre rather than weaving. Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901), Odysseus and Calypso (1883), oil on panel, 104 × 150 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland. However, Odysseus realised that he wanted to be re-united with his wife Penelope, and the gods finally released him. She detained Odysseus for seven years as her ‘immortal husband’, enchanting him with her singing as she weaved with a golden shuttle on her loom. In Greek mythology, Calypso was a nymph, daughter of Atlas the Titan, who lived on the island of Ogygia. ![]() That brought disaster for them in shipwreck, drowning all except Odysseus, who clung on to a fig tree, and was washed up on the island of Ogygia, where he was held captive by Calypso. The remaining crew overrode Odysseus and landed on Thrinacia, where they ignored the warnings given by Tiresias and Circe, and hunted the sacred cattle of Helios. The next challenge to Odysseus and his crew was the combined perils of the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, which claimed six men. Odysseus’ ship is in the distance, as the three beautiful sirens use their pipes and lyre to lure the occupants to their deaths. The Sirens (1903) marked Henrietta Rae’s return to narrative works featuring classical nudes. Another sailor, at the stern of the ship (left of the painting), is seen clutching his ears. His Sirens are clearly singing, particularly the one closest to the viewer, who is challenging the hearing protection of one of the sailors. ![]() He has added bandage wrappings around the head of each sailor to make it clear that their ears are stopped from hearing sound, a visual device which links neatly with the text. John William Waterhouse’s Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) is close to the Homeric account, although he provides a total of seven Sirens, appropriately shown as a large eagle-like bird of prey with the head and neck of a beautiful young woman. ![]() John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), Ulysses and the Sirens (1891), oil on canvas, 100.6 x 201.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. His three naked sirens are all woman, one playing a lyre, and doing their best to draw the sailors from Odysseus’ ship to a shore on which lie the remains of earlier victims. William Etty’s The Sirens and Ulysses from about 1837 is one the pioneering accounts in paint of this story. William Etty (1787–1849), The Sirens and Ulysses (c 1837), oil on canvas, 297 x 442.5 cm, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, England. Once they had passed safely from earshot of the Sirens, Odysseus used his facial expression to inform his men, who then released him, and they sailed on. He gave them strict instructions that under no circumstances, no matter what he said at the time, were they to loosen his bonds, as he would be listening to the Sirens’ song.Īs the group reached the Sirens, Odysseus instructed his men to release him, but instead they bound him even more closely to the mast. In preparation, Odysseus got his sailors to plug their ears with beeswax before they reached the Sirens, so that they couldn’t hear their song, and to bind him to the mast. At the end of the previous article in this series, Circe had helpfully advised Odysseus that he would have to sail past the Sirens, two to five creatures who lured men to their death with their singing.
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