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In Greek mythology, sirens (Ancient Greek: singular: , Seirn; plural: , Seirnes) are humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus saves his crew's lives.[1] Roman poets place them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa,[2] is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.[3] All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks.

Sirens were later often used as a synonym for mermaids, and portrayed with upper human bodies and fish tails. This combination became iconic in the medieval period.[7][8] The circumstances leading to the commingling involve the treatment of sirens in the medieval Physiologus and bestiaries, both iconographically,[9] as well as textually in translations from Latin to vulgar languages,[a][10] as described below.

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The sirens of Greek mythology first appeared in Homer's Odyssey, where Homer did not provide any physical descriptions, and their visual appearance was left to the readers' imagination. It was Apollonius of Rhodes in Argonautica (3rd century BC) who described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird.[b][11][12] By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds.[13] They may have been influenced by the ba-bird of Egyptian religion. In early Greek art, the sirens were generally represented as large birds with women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later depictions shifted to show sirens with human upper bodies and bird legs, with or without wings. They were often shown playing a variety of musical instruments, especially the lyre, kithara, and aulos.[14]

The tenth-century Byzantine dictionary Suda stated that sirens (Greek: )[c] 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.[15]

Some surviving Classical period examples had already depicted the siren as mermaid-like.[7] The sirens are depicted as mermaids or "tritonesses" in examples dating to the 3rd century BC, including an earthenware bowl found in Athens[19][21] and a terracotta oil lamp possibly from the Roman period.[7]

The first known literary attestation of siren as a "mermaid" appeared in the Anglo-Latin catalogue Liber Monstrorum (early 8th century AD), where it says that sirens were "sea-girls... with the body of a maiden, but have scaly fishes' tails".[22][23]

Although a Sophocles fragment makes Phorcys their father,[26] when sirens are named, they are usually as daughters of the river god Achelous,[27] either by the Muse Terpsichore,[28] Melpomene[29] or Calliope[30] or lastly by Sterope, daughter of King Porthaon of Calydon.[31]

In Euripides's play Helen (167), Helen in her anguish calls upon "Winged maidens, daughters of the Earth (Chthon)." Although they lured mariners, the Greeks portrayed the sirens in their "meadow starred with flowers" and not as sea deities. Epimenides claimed that the sirens were children of Oceanus and Ge.[32] Sirens are found in many Greek stories, notably in Homer's Odyssey.

Their number is variously reported as from two to eight.[33] In the Odyssey, Homer says nothing of their origin or names, but gives the number of the sirens as two.[34] Later writers mention both their names and number: some state that there were three, Peisinoe, Aglaope and Thelxiepeia[35] or Aglaonoe, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia;[36] Parthenope, Ligeia, and Leucosia;[37] Apollonius followed Hesiod gives their names as Thelxinoe, Molpe, and Aglaophonos;[38] Suidas gives their names as Thelxiepeia, Peisinoe, and Ligeia;[39] Hyginus gives the number of the sirens as four: Teles, Raidne, Molpe, and Thelxiope;[40] Eustathius states that they were two, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia;[41] an ancient vase painting attests the two names as Himerope and Thelxiepeia.

One legend says that Hera, queen of the gods, persuaded the sirens to enter a singing contest with the Muses. The Muses won the competition and then plucked out all of the sirens' feathers and made crowns out of them.[48] Out of their anguish from losing the competition, writes Stephanus of Byzantium, the sirens turned white and fell into the sea at Aptera ("featherless"), where they formed the islands in the bay that were called Leukai ("the white ones", modern Souda).[49]

Odysseus was curious as to what the sirens sang to him, and so, on the advice of Circe, he had all of his sailors plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered his men to leave him tied tightly to the mast, no matter how much he might beg. When he heard their beautiful song, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they bound him tighter. When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus demonstrated with his frowns to be released.[50] Some post-Homeric authors state that the sirens were fated to die if someone heard their singing and escaped them, and that after Odysseus passed by they therefore flung themselves into the water and perished.[51]

The first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder discounted sirens as a pure fable, "although Dinon, the father of Clearchus, a celebrated writer, asserts that they exist in India, and that they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces."[52]

Saint Jerome, who produced the Latin Vulgate version of the bible, used the word sirens to translate Hebrew tannm ("jackals") in the Book of Isaiah 13:22, and also to translate a word for "owls" in the Book of Jeremiah 50:39.

They [the Greeks] imagine that "there were three sirens, part virgins, part birds," with wings and claws. "One of them sang, another played the flute, the third the lyre. They drew sailors, decoyed by song, to shipwreck. According to the truth, however, they were prostitutes who led travelers down to poverty and were said to impose shipwreck on them." They had wings and claws because Love flies and wounds. They are said to have stayed in the waves because a wave created Venus.[61]

Italian poet Dante Alighieri depicts a siren in Canto 19 of Purgatorio, the second canticle of the Divine Comedy. Here, the pilgrim dreams of a female that is described as "stuttering, cross-eyed, and crooked on her feet, with stunted hands, and pallid in color."[104] It is not until the pilgrim "gazes" upon her that she is turned desirable and is revealed by herself to be a siren.[104] This siren then claims that she "turned Ulysses from his course, desirous of my / song, and whoever becomes used to me rarely / leaves me, so wholly do I satisfy him!"[104] Given that Dante did not have access to the Odyssey, the siren's claim that she turned Ulysses from his course is inherently false because the sirens in the Odyssey do not manage to turn Ulysses from his path.[105] Ulysses and his men were warned by Circe and prepared for their encounter by stuffing their ears full of wax,[105][106] except for Ulysses, who wishes to be bound to the ship's mast as he wants to hear the siren's song.[106] Scholars claim that Dante may have "misinterpreted" the siren's claim from an episode in Cicero's De finibus.[105] The pilgrim's dream comes to an end when a lady "holy and quick"[104] who had not yet been present before suddenly appears and says, "O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?"[104] Virgil, the pilgrim's guide, then steps forward and tears the clothes from the siren's belly which, "awakened me [the pilgrim] with the stench that issued from it."[104] This marks ending the encounter between the pilgrim and the siren.

John Lemprire in his Classical Dictionary (1827) wrote, "Some suppose that the sirens were a number of lascivious women in Sicily, who prostituted themselves to strangers, and made them forget their pursuits while drowned in unlawful pleasures. The etymology of Bochart, who deduces the name from a Phoenician term denoting a songstress, favors the explanation given of the fable by Damm.[112] This distinguished critic makes the sirens to have been excellent singers, and divesting the fables respecting them of all their terrific features, he supposes that by the charms of music and song they detained travellers, and made them altogether forgetful of their native land."[113]

The French impressionist composer, Claude Debussy, composed the orchestral work Nocturnes in which the third movement, "Sirnes", depicts sirens. According to Debussy, "'Sirnes' depicts the sea and its countless rhythms and presently, amongst the waves silvered by the moonlight, is heard the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on".[114]

Designed as an outdoor warning system, the sirens should not be relied upon to provide sufficient warning indoors or in noisy areas. Air conditioning, thunder, wind, rain, and other conditions can cause the sirens not to be heard indoors or outdoors (even if sirens can be heard during tests).

The cities within the county own and maintain the sirens within their cities. Johnson County Emergency Management has the primary responsibility to activate the sirens throughout the county. In addition, the cities of Lenexa, Olathe, and Overland Park have the capability of activating their own sirens if they so chose.

The City of Joplin is continually upgrading/improving its outdoor warning sirens. As a review, the sirens are outdoor warning devices that are used to alert people who are out of doors to go indoors and seek shelter. In decades past these sirens were installed to warn citizens in the event of an attack on our nation by a foreign power. These days, outdoor sirens are used to warn of an impending locally severe weather event. Some people have asked, "During what kind of weather events are the sirens sounded?" The answer is, simply stated, "a high wind event". Obviously, this needs further explanation. e24fc04721