The document summarizes the Greek myth of Odysseus and the Sirens, in which Odysseus has his crew tie him to the mast of his ship so that he can hear the Sirens' song without succumbing to their temptation. The myth is explored from various perspectives, such as whether it represents avoiding distractions on the hero's journey, resisting the feminine, or dealing with anima/animus projections. The Sirens' motivation for luring sailors is also examined.

1. Odysseus
and
the Sirens
Every time just like the last
On her ship tied to the mast – Golden Brown

2. 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

3. The ‘story’ lived in the ancient world
Greek vase circa 470BCE
Etruscan art circa 525BCE

4. The ‘story’ is revived in Victorian
period art & literature
JW Waterhouse 1891
Herbert Draper 1909

5. Stamps, mugs & albums
(sadly no pencil topper)

6. Pop culture, top culture

7. 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 leaning
Broken 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'

8. What’s it all mean?
Just a great adventure story about the canny hero Ulysses?

9. Is it the archetypal story of
the hero’s quest?
The hero’s
return home
with a boon?

10. Is it the story of avoiding sidetracks on
the spiritual quest?
Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year,
Again, should you come to gay
Carthage or Corinth, take part
In their endless gaiety;
And if in some bar a tart,
As she strokes your hair, should say
"This is Atlantis, dearie,“
Atlantis - WH Auden

11. Is it about a man showing his strength?
Able to resist the feminine?
Tied to the mast in power?

12. Is it a story like Eve in the Garden
of Eden?

13. Women as the femme
fatale? Temptress?
Seductress?

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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

17. Looking for another to “save” you, to
make you complete?

18. 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'.

19. 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).

20. 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?)

21. The song of shipwreck

22. Try this song instead
Your 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

23. Sailing home to Ithaca
Do not chafe and strain at
the ropes that bind you:
in their time these too will fall away. (Ynes)

24. Melbourne Art Gallery

25. Enjoy the journey
Ithaca 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)

26. The end ……or ……..