Odysseus

and

the Sirens

Every time just like the last

On her ship tied to the mast – Golden Brown

What’s the story?

• Homer’s Odyssey

• the journey home

• Circe’s warning

• the Siren’s song

• the pact

• tied to the mast

• wax in the ears

The ‘story’ lived in the ancient world

Greek vase circa 470BCE

Etruscan art circa 525BCE

The ‘story’ is revived in Victorian

period art & literature

JW Waterhouse 1891

Herbert Draper 1909

Stamps, mugs & albums

(sadly no pencil topper)

Pop culture, top culture

Song to the Siren

– Tim Buckley

Did I dream you dreamed about me?Were you hare when I was fox?Now my foolish boat is leaningBroken lovelorn on your rocks,For you sing, 'touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow:O my heart, o my heart shies from the sorrow'

What’s it all mean?

Just a great adventure story about the canny hero Ulysses?

Is it the archetypal story of

the hero’s quest?

The hero’s

return home

with a boon?

Is it the story of avoiding sidetracks on

the spiritual quest?

Being set on the ideaOf getting to Atlantis,You have discovered of courseOnly the Ship of Fools isMaking the voyage this year,

Again, should you come to gayCarthage or Corinth, take partIn their endless gaiety;And if in some bar a tart,As she strokes your hair, should say"This is Atlantis, dearie,“

Atlantis - WH Auden

Is it about a man showing his strength?

Able to resist the feminine?

Tied to the mast in power?

Is it a story like Eve in the Garden

of Eden?

Women as the femme

fatale? Temptress?

Seductress?

Margaret Atwood defends women in

the 1976 Siren Song poem

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

Atwood’s take

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only to you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

At last. Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time.

Like Circe, Atwood is right on the money!

Is there one and only one for us?

“Help me. Only you, only you can,

you are unique”

It’s not just a boring song

it’s a deadly song.

The song of the sole soul mate!

The beached skulls

Looking for another to “save” you, to

make you complete?

Anima & Animus

• anima (Latin for “soul”)a wildly imaginative, seductive feminine power within man; the Eros...sometimes carrying the emotional charge of the 'ideal woman or lover'.

• animus (Latin for “spirit”)a fiercely willful, visionary masculine luminosity within woman; the Logos...sometimes carrying the emotional charge of the 'ideal man or lover'.

Love at first sight

Jung gave an example of a man who falls head over heels in love, then later in life regrets his blind choice as he finds that he has married his own anima–the unconscious idea of the feminine in his mind, rather than the woman herself.

Ulysses is “tied” to the mast, hearing the song but able to resist death. This is working Jung’s “masterpiece of life” recognising and incorporating your anima (or animus).

Why do the sirens sing?

In the myth if a ship went past the sirens would die.

Perhaps siren women think they have to be this way or they will “die” in some way (be without a man?, be unattractive? lose power?)

The song of shipwreck

Try this song insteadYour love is one in a million

You couldn’t buy it at any price.

But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves,

Statistically, some of them would be equally nice

With all my heart and all my mind I know one thing is true:

I have just one life and just one love and, my love, that love is you.

And if it wasn't for you, baby,

I really think that I would have somebody else.

If I didn’t have you – Tim Minchin

Sailing home to Ithaca

Do not chafe and strain at

the ropes that bind you:

in their time these too will fall away. (Ynes)

Melbourne Art Gallery

Enjoy the journeyIthaca has given you the beautiful voyage.Without her you would have never set out on the road.She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.Wise as you have become, with so much experience,you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Ithaca Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

The end ……or ……..