ll7SPO.\f OF THE A \CIENTS. 443 



XVII. TFIE FABLE OF THE SIRENS. 



EXPLAINED OF MEN S PASSION FOR PLEASURES. 



INTRODUCTION. The fable of the Sirens is, in a vulgar sense, 

 justly enough explained of the pernicious incentives to pleasure ; but 

 the ancient mythology seems to us like a vintage ill-pressed and trot! ; 

 for though something has l&amp;gt;cen drawn from it, yet all the more excel 

 lent parts remain behind in the grapes that are untouched. 



FABLE. The Sirens arc said to be the daughters of Achclous and 

 Terpsichore, one of the Muses. In their early days they had wings, 

 but lost them upon being conquered by the Muses, with whom they 

 rashly contended ; and with the feathers of these wings the Muses 

 made themselves crowns, so that from this time the Muses wore wings 

 &amp;gt;n their heads, excepting only the mother to the Sirens. 



These Sirens resided in certain pleasant islands, and when, from 

 their watch-tower, they saw any ship approaching, they first detained 

 the sailors by their music, then, enticing them to shore, destroyed them. 



Their singing was not of one and the same kind, but they adapted 

 their tunes exactly to the nature of each person, in order to captivate 

 and secure him. And so destructive had they been, that these islands 

 of the Sirens appeared, to a very great distance, white with the bones 

 oi their unburicd captives. 



Two different remedies were invented to protect persons against 

 them, the one by Ulysses, the other by Orpheus. Ulysses commanded 

 his associates to stop their ears close with wax ; and he, determining 

 to make the trial, and yet avoid the danger, ordered himself to be tied 

 fast to a mast of the ship, giving strict charge not to be unbound, even 

 though himself should entreat it ; but Orpheus, without any binding at 

 all, escaped the danger, by loudly chanting to his harp the praises of 

 the gods, whereby he drowned the voices of the Sirens. 



EXPLANATION. This table is of the moral kind, and appears no 

 less elegant than easy to interpret. For pleasures proceed from plenty 

 and affluence, attended with activity or exultation of the mind.* 

 Anciently their f .rst incentives were quick, and seized upon men as if 

 they had been winged, but learning and philosophy afterwards prevail 

 ing, had at least the power to lay the mind under some restraint, and 

 malre it consider the issue of things, and thus deprived pleasures of 

 their wings. 



This conquest redounded greatly to the honour and ornament of the 

 Muses ; for after it appeared, by the example of a few, that philosophy 

 could introduce a contempt of pleasures, it immediately seemed to l&amp;gt;c a 

 sublime thing that could raise and elevate the soul, fixed in a manner 



The one denoted by the river Achelous, and Ihe other by Terpsichore, the 

 that invented th^ ciihar.i and drlighted in dancing. 



