Talk:Siren (mythology)

message: This article as written now is unorganized and confusing, and really appears as a collection of unorganized details. What ought to be done is A) present the salient (main & important) features of the story of the sirens, and then B) present the minor variations on it.
As it is now, it is like spaghetti thrown up against the wall.
Please shift "sirens in popular culture" to a seperate article .
WoodElf 11:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I'm not sure how to change this, but it should be changed: Although titled correctly in this article, the linked photograph of the painting is titled 'Ulysses and the sirens' instead of the correct 'Odysseus and the sirens'. Someone might want to change that.
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In Homeric poems such as 'The Odyssey' and 'The Iliad' Odysseus is called Odysseus. However, Virgil calls Odysseus 'Ulysses'.
I am pretty sure Ulysses is the latin name, and Odysseus is the translation.
Musica101 18:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Odysseus not Ulysses

message: The following paragraph seems to have a logic error in it:
:"It is said that, incensed at having been outplayed, the Sirens flung themselves down into the water and perished. Varying traditions associate this event with their encounters with Jason or Odysseus, though the incident appears in neither Homer's Odyssey nor Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica."
Since no other music was played in the Odyssey, the Sirens must have thrown themselves into the sea for some other reason, such as having failed in their goal. StuRat 06:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: It is said....

message: Recently there has been a concerted effort in a number of AfDs to delete a raft of popular culture articles. The separate Sirens in popular culture article was spun off from the main article 18 months ago and subsequently took on a life of its own as a magnet to any number of trivial references. As a result of an AfD nomination, the article has since been cleaned up and drastically shortened. In addition, a number of editors now watch this page, the popular culture page and the Siren dab to keep them free from fancruft, listcruft and general trivia mess. On that basis it would seem more sensible to restore the short paragraphs to this, the main article. Please leave any comments on this proposal either here or at Talk:Sirens in popular culture. The discussion will be left open for a month or so before making any decision. Thanks Dick G 00:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections to proposal. Merge completed.Dick G 02:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Popular culture section

message: This from the intro needs rewriting to make it clear which writers are being talked about, and to remove the implication that certain writers tell the "real" story:
::"Later writers have stated that the Sirens were anthropophagous, but this is not supported by classical writings, nor is there any evidence that the Sirens drowned themselves failing to seduce one of the many heroes that passed their way, though that has also become a fixture in retellings of the story." 
Dybryd 02:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Its rather misleading indeed. People are confusing sources with authority. Like the statement that "there is no evidence the Sirens drowned themselves" except "in retellings of the story." Well, it is true that the story is only now to be found in late Greek and Roman texts, but if you look at Greek art you can find the "Siren-suicide" scene in works created centuries before any of those writers. In other words, those "retellings" and the art are both sourced from some very old lost Greek work. Because 95% of Greek literature is lost to us, its almost always impossible to distinguish been "authentic" myth and later embellishment. --Theranos 15:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Problematic passage from intro

message: I am quite sure that The Penguin Guide to Classical Mythology says it's the same Parthenope who was a Siren, but if it's a different Parthenope, that would make sense, since the Sirens do not appear to be mortals. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Parthenope

message: I notice that an editor has recently added this image to the page. The illustration appears to be the editor's own work and is not a classical or otherwise published rendition of the sirens. As such my own view is that it doesn't add much to our understanding of the subject even if it is a competent enough illustration. Is there a policy as to self-made images/illustrations and or the notability of images like this? Or do any other editors have any comments as to the image's inclusion? Dick G (talk) 05:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems the image hasn't lasted long anyway; ignore the above. Cheers Dick G (talk) 01:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually it's back. Previous comment stands - what is the policy on accepting apparently self-made images? Dick G (talk) 05:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The link you posted is also dead, but I noticed the image on the article (was probably re-poster) here. I personally think that this doesn't have its place there, but I'm not sure about the exact policy for it (Etienne, 28 September 2008)
i know im three years late but that ones also dead. cheers.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.209.0.125 (talk) 20:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: I deleted "LadyParasyte's Sirens and" because 1) there's no article on Lady Parasyte in Wikipedia, and a Google search on her only brought up about 1,500 hits - Therefore, I don't think she should be included in Popular culture. -CaptainJae (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular culture edit 

message: I have been musing on this and am genuinely openminded as my knowledge of Russian folklore is limited. However it seems to me that what we have is the evolution of a legend across cultures (women who sing and lure men... etc.) and so maybe a single robust page (as there are many more similarities than differences) would be appropriate. I am open-minded about this :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: # tentatively, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # Absolutely necessary. It's just a spelling difference forked off into a separate article and treated completely differently for no good reason. We don't give a new article to reflect different countries' spellings of the same topic. DreamGuy (talk) 12:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # weak oppose as long as current start-class Siren is not robust enough to digest addition of a fairly long chunk of text. One-paragraph notice on Sirin, perhaps with a single pic, will do fine in Siren, which means all other content of present Sirin will be gone. I'd rather consider merging all invented Slavic birds into a single article. NVO (talk) 05:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # weak oppose. I echo NVO's concerns and look to WP:NOTPAPER and WP:PRESERVE. Though based on the Greek Siren (as the article notes), the Sirin of Russian mythology clearly has its own existence outside and beyond the Greek Siren. Merging while preserving all the good content in Sirin would result in a Siren article unduely weighting towards discussion of the Russian myth. Dlabtot (talk) 08:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # oppose per Dlabtot, good point.  There seems to be enough information in Sirin to merit a dedicated article, and enough cultural distinctivity. But it should certainly be mentioned, summarised, and linked here, as Wetman says.  B'er Rabbit (Briar Patch) 12:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # oppose - myths from different cultures should not be treated as the same simply because one is developed from the other -- Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas are not the same article, and should not be. And in this case, emphasizing the etymological link to the Greek sirens would obscure what seems to me a clear link to the historically and geographically closer stories of the Persian Pairika, and to the many singing-temptress figures in northern European folklore (Lorelei etc.). Dybryd (talk) 09:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Sounds like a good idea, will look to it a bit later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: :# tentatively, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: # Absolutely necessary. It's just a spelling difference forked off into a separate article and treated completely differently for no good reason. We don't give a new article to reflect different countries' spellings of the same topic. DreamGuy (talk) 12:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: :# weak oppose as long as current start-class Siren is not robust enough to digest addition of a fairly long chunk of text. One-paragraph notice on Sirin, perhaps with a single pic, will do fine in Siren, which means all other content of present Sirin will be gone. I'd rather consider merging all invented Slavic birds into a single article. NVO (talk) 05:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: # weak oppose. I echo NVO's concerns and look to WP:NOTPAPER and WP:PRESERVE. Though based on the Greek Siren (as the article notes), the Sirin of Russian mythology clearly has its own existence outside and beyond the Greek Siren. Merging while preserving all the good content in Sirin would result in a Siren article unduely weighting towards discussion of the Russian myth. Dlabtot (talk) 08:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # oppose per Dlabtot, good point.  There seems to be enough information in Sirin to merit a dedicated article, and enough cultural distinctivity. But it should certainly be mentioned, summarised, and linked here, as Wetman says.  B'er Rabbit (Briar Patch) 12:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

text: # oppose - myths from different cultures should not be treated as the same simply because one is developed from the other -- Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas are not the same article, and should not be. And in this case, emphasizing the etymological link to the Greek sirens would obscure what seems to me a clear link to the historically and geographically closer stories of the Persian Pairika, and to the many singing-temptress figures in northern European folklore (Lorelei etc.). Dybryd (talk) 09:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: I suggest that a condensed summary of Sirin be added to this article, with the appropriate hatnote. That's the framework best adapted for future expansions of both subjects.--Wetman (talk) 05:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good idea, will look to it a bit later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: * Could it be possible that Sirens were "aids to memory" to ancient sailors? --Oracleofottawa (talk) 02:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Hazards To Navigation?

message: Would someone whose Greek is better than mine double check the reference for there being two Sirens in The Odyssey? I think that this fact might have been derived from the Samuel Butler translation rather than from the text itself. To me it looks as if it rests on a word that doesn't necessarily indicate a pair, and some other translations, including the well-regarded Fagles translation that's currently getting a lot of use among academics, do not indicate that there are two Sirens.
--184.78.241.209 (talk) 21:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, it's two.  Od. 12.52 reads: , "that you may delight in hearing the voice of the Seirens".  The form used here, , Seirenoiin, is a dual genitive, meaning "of the two Seirens". — cardiff | chestnut —  21:19, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Sirens in Homer 

message: «In 1917, Franz Kafka wrote in The Silence of the Sirens, "Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never."»
How is this relevant? It has very little to do with the siren as a mythological being ; at the very least, it should probably be moved from the "appearance" subsection.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.249.181.132 (talk) 23:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doubtful relevance of a Kafka quote 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Siren (noisemaker) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 13:30, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: This move has left a lot of links pointing to siren, which is now a disambiguation page. After closing the discussion, I have updated the 3 templates which linked to the mythological sirens (, , ), but it will take some time for the templates to purge.  I have disambiguated a few other links, but a lot of tidying disambiguation is still needed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:46, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation needed 

message: This article could mention the similarity of the sirens to the Lorelei of German folklore, and point out how this 
is support for the idea of C.G. Jung on a collective unconscious. Vorbee (talk) 08:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Lorelei

message: The closing paragraph of the introduction contains the following:
The Greek philosopher Plato says there were three kinds of sirens- the celestial, the generative, and the cathartic. The first were under the government of Zeus, the second under that of Poseidon, and the third of Hades. (A parallel might be intended here between the three planets, and the deities of the same name.)
Which planets are being referenced here, and how do they relate to Sirens? If this refers to the planets named after the corresponding Roman gods – Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto – this is undoubtedly incorrect. Neptune and Pluto are too distant to be seen with the naked eye, and were only discovered after the development of modern optics. 
Furthermore, this division of Siren types doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else in the article, nor is Plato referenced again. The only source is a dictionary on mythology from 1883, which I don't fully trust to provide an accurate picture of how Sirens were viewed in Ancient Greece. Regardless of the accuracy of the claim, it doesn't seem to be necessary information to the understanding of Sirens, and I therefore don't think it belongs in the introduction.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.189.140.20 (talk) 19:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing introduction 

message: "The entry for the "sirens" (Greek: Σειρῆνας)[a] in the tenth-century Byzantine dictionary Suda sirens had the form of sparrows from their chests up, and below they were women or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women's faces."
The photos of depictions mostly are not like that. The statues have wings, but most of the paintings only depict a woman, with nothing animal-like, one has a woman with fishtail (which I thought is a mermaid feature). 109.240.39.10 (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  appearance? 

message: Sirens were also depicted in God of War (2005 video game.
Can we add a section? Aminabzz (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular culture 

message: Should the link in this article for Cannibalism be to Cannibalism or Human cannibalism? Sirens are human-like, but not human. What do people think? 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Siren_%28mythology%29&diff=1211092783&oldid=1210523915
Vajzë Blu (talk) 02:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The cannibalism page is generally used for zoology (animals of the same species eating each other). As sirens are described as human-like, and given that they are mythological, human cannibalism is a better fit. Swinub (talk) 03:11, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

text: Cannibalism (among animals) is in any case not the best link target, since their victims were certainly humans, right? So if one considers them a kind of humans, the current link to human cannibalism makes sense, but if not, then link and text should be changed to "man-eaters". Either option seems reasonable to me, and not being well-versed in the biology of non-existent creatures, I'll leave the choice to others. Gawaon (talk) 18:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Man-eater seems like a good choice. Even though it sounds sexist. They can eat females too! Vajzë Blu (talk) 18:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cannibalism or Human Cannibalism? 

message: — Assignment last updated by Oliviahowe07 (talk) 21:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: College Composition II

message: It was Apollonius of Rhodes in Argonautica (3rd century BC) who described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird. By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds.
That section really doesn't make sense, the way it's phrased. It makes it sound like the 7th century BC came after the 3rd century BC.Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 14:38, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  By the seventh century