Homer’s Sirens?
Photo by artolog
What you’re looking at above may be a Siren as mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey*. Karl-Heinz Frommolt, head of the Achieve of Animal Sounds at the Humboldt Museum in Germany, believes he has identified the Sirens’ lair on the Li Galli islands, off Sorrento on Italy’s Amalfi coast. His idea is based on the fact that you can hear the seals’ calls from a distance, but not human calls. It’s an interesting idea. You’d hear the calls but find no human on the island when you arrived – assuming your boat hadn’t been torn asunder on the rocks. It would rather depend on the archaic Greeks not having much of an idea of how seals behave though. This is where is breaks down.
When the sun hath reached mid-heaven, the unerring old man of the sea is wont to come forth from the brine at the breath of the West Wind, hidden by the dark ripple. And when he is come forth, he lies down to sleep in the hollow caves; and around him the seals, the brood of the fair daughter of the sea, [405] sleep in a herd, coming forth from the gray water, and bitter is the smell they breathe of the depths of the sea. Thither will I lead thee at break of day and lay you all in a row; for do thou choose carefully three of thy companions, who are the best thou hast in thy well-benched ships. [410] And I will tell thee all the wizard wiles of that old man. First he will count the seals, and go over them; but when he has told them all off by fives, and beheld them, he will lay himself down in their midst, as a shepherd among his flocks of sheep.
It would seem that the author of the Odyssey was familar with seals, so it’s unlikely that they were mistaken for Sirens.
Let’s pretend I found this bit of news on Rogue Classicism because it’s much less embarassing than admitting I saw it on Fark (which I read strictly for the articles).
* Eagle-eyed readers will of course note this is a Hawaiian Monk Seal (Monachus Schauinslandi) not a Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus).
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