Odysseus and the Sirens—Dionysiac Boat-Races—A Cylix by Nikosthenes

Extract

Four years ago, in dealing with the Myths of the Odyssey, I raised afresh the time-honoured difficulty of the art-form of the Sirens: Why are the sweet singers of Homer pictured as hybrid monsters—birds with the faces of women ? Much that I then said about the Sirens may, I hope, still hold good; but the final solution or part solution of the difficulty which I arrived at, I now believe to be mistaken, and, with more complete material at hand, I hope in the present paper to offer a new, and possibly a more satisfactory, solution. I fell then into the not uncommon error of projecting into the mind of the Greek vase-painter a great deal of allegorizing tendency and somewhat mystical moral purpose which was really conspicuous by its absence; my familiarity with the literary forms and the literary growth of mythology was much wider than my acquaintance with the manner and the influence of artistic tradition. The power of tradition in an art and still more in a handicraft is not easily overestimated. The thought and expression of the handicraftsman is governed by the art forms that lie ready to his hand, just as the thought of a writer is moulded and fashioned by the language he employs. Each must use current phraseology, only elevating or debasing it a little according to his proper faculty.