The Sirens are singers whose voices no sailor has ever resisted, and their meadow is ringed with the bones of the men who tried. They hold the stage for only a few dozen lines in Book 12, and in that short space they became the original of every temptation too sweet to refuse.
Warned in advance by the goddess Circe, Odysseus sails past the Sirens' island by stopping his crew's ears with softened beeswax while having himself lashed upright to the mast. He alone hears the song; when its sweetness overpowers him and he begs to be loosed, his men only bind him tighter and row on until the danger is past. So Odysseus becomes the one man to hear the Sirens and live.
Circe had briefed him for this. She told him the Sirens sit in a flowering meadow, and that around them lie the rotting bodies of the men their song has called in off the water; any sailor who hears them unwarned is lost. She gave him the trick, too. Stop the crew's ears so the song can't reach them, and if you must hear it yourself, have them bind you to the mast — and tell them, whatever happens, not to set you free.
He follows it to the letter. He kneads a great wheel of beeswax soft in his hands and seals the ears of every man at the oars. They tie him upright against the mast, hand and foot, and pull the knots tight.
Then the song reaches him, and it goes straight through. He strains at the ropes, throws his head toward the shore, screams at his men to turn the ship — and they hear none of it. Two of them only rise and lash him tighter. They row until the voices have thinned to nothing astern, and only then cut him loose.
The trap is not beauty. It is knowledge. The Sirens sing that they know everything — all the Greeks and Trojans suffered on the plain of Troy, all that happens anywhere on the living earth — and they promise that whoever listens sails away knowing it too. What they are selling is omniscience: the chance to stand outside your own small life and see the whole of things at once.
That is the deeper bait, the longing to know everything, and the price it asks is that you stop moving. To answer the Sirens is to ship your oars and trade the long road home for a knowledge that was never meant for living men. Odysseus survives it in the strangest way of all. He does not block his ears. He lets himself want the song with his whole body, and makes it impossible to obey.
We still talk about a “siren song”: the lure that is lovely on the surface and ruinous underneath, dangerous precisely because it is so hard to turn down. The winged bird-woman most people picture — and the later fish-tailed mermaid — come from traditions that grew up after Homer. The Odyssey itself never describes their bodies at all. It tells us only about the voice.
How did Odysseus survive the Sirens?
He plugged his crew's ears with beeswax so they could row past unaffected, and had himself tied to the mast so he could hear the song without being able to act on it. He had them swear to ignore his pleas and bind him tighter if he begged for release.
What do the Sirens sing about?
They sing of knowledge — claiming to know all that happened at Troy and everything that comes to pass on earth, and promising the listener will leave wiser. The temptation is the desire to know everything, not mere music.
What does “siren song” mean?
It is an idiom for an appeal that is highly attractive but leads to harm or ruin — a temptation made dangerous by how hard it is to refuse.