They’re coming at me, all the ancients…
Souls of antiquity, artists and politicians, the real and the mythical, are taking up residence in my brain:
In her absorbing history of Naples, In the Shadow of Vesuvius, Jordan Lancaster tells us:
“Persephone’s childhood friends, the siren sisters, were the daughters of Melpomene, the muse of tragedy.They are often depicted as beautiful creatures, half-woman and half-bird….However, since the Middle Ages, the sirens have been portrayed as mermaids, half-woman and half-fish, representing a potential hazard to fisherman and sailors. The Ancients had a reverential fear of the sirens, who personified the perils of the sea and its storms. Because the sirens had been cursed by Demeter for their failure to save her daughter [Persephone], their beautiful music always portended disaster. Their songs promise to reveal great secrets about life and the world, yet in truth they were only a ruse to lure hapless sailors to their island off the Amalfi Coast, to be seduced and devoured.
The very rocks on which those vessels foundered are, I understand, near the Isle of Capri. One can still see them – I will see them!
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Ulysses and the Sirens, John William Waterhouse, 1891
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Sirènes, by Claude Debussy, Claudio Abbado conducting:
Books to the Ceiling 
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