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SIREN.| NATURAL HISTORY. 289 
Siren. 
Comepy or Errors, iii, 2, 47. 
Tue mermaiden hight Siren, and is a sea-beast wonderly 
shapen, and draweth shipmen to peril by sweetness of 
song. And some men say that they are fishes of the sea 
in likeness of women. Sirens be great dragons flying with 
crests, as some men trow. And some men feign that there 
are three Sirens somedeal maidens, and somedeal fowls with 
Fes 3 
claws and wings, but the sooth is, that they were strong 
whores, that drew men that passed by them to poverty 
and to mischief. And in Arabia be serpents with wings, 
that be called Sirens, and run more swiftly than horses, 
and do fly with wings, and their venom is so strong that 
death is felt sooner than ache or sore. And Siren is a 
beast of the sea, wonderly shapen as a maid from the navel 
upward, and a fish from the navel downward, and this 
wonderful beast is glad and merry in tempest, and sad and 
heavy in fair weather. With sweetness of song this beast 
maketh shipmen to sleep, and when she seeth that they be 
asleep, she goeth into the ship, and ravisheth which she 
may take with her, and bringeth him into a dry place, and 
[the rest is indecent]. Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 97. 
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