Passing the Sirens

The Passing of the Sirens is the episode in which Odysseus, following Circe's instructions, stops his crew's ears with wax and has himself bound to the mast so that he alone may hear the Sirens' lethal song without being destroyed. It is the most concentrated demonstration in the Odyssey of the hero's desire for forbidden knowledge and of the self-imposed restraint that alone makes such knowledge survivable.

Circe's Warning and the Plan

Before Odysseus leaves the Aeaean island, Circe takes him aside and warns him of the Sirens, who enchant all who come near them. She tells him that if anyone unwarily draws too close and hears their singing, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for the Sirens sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. A great heap of dead men's bones lies all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Circe instructs Odysseus to stop his men's ears with wax so that none of them may hear, but she allows him to listen himself if he wishes. He must have his men bind him upright to a crosspiece half way up the mast, lashing the rope's ends to the mast itself, and if he begs and prays to be unloosed, they must bind him faster.

The Passage and the Song

Odysseus relays Circe's prophecy to his crew, telling them that it is not right that only one or two of them should know what lies ahead. He orders them to bind him to the crosspiece with a bond so fast that he cannot possibly break away, and to lash the rope's ends to the mast. As the ship approaches the island of the two Sirens, the wind falls dead calm, and the men furl the sails and take to their oars, whitening the water with the foam they raise. Odysseus takes a large wheel of wax, cuts it up small with his sword, and kneads it in his strong hands until it becomes soft, which it soon does between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god Hyperion. He stops the ears of all his men, and they bind him hands and feet to the mast as he stands upright on the crosspiece. When the ship is within earshot, the Sirens see that Odysseus is getting in shore and begin their singing. They call to him by name, addressing him as "renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name," and promise that no one ever sails past them without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of their song. They claim that he who listens will go on his way not only charmed but wiser, for they know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell everything that is going to happen over the whole world. As Odysseus longs to hear them further, he makes signs by frowning to his men that they should set him free, but they quicken their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bind him with still stronger bonds until the ship has passed out of hearing of the Sirens' voices. Only then do the men take the wax from their ears and unloose him.

Consequences and Significance

The episode immediately precedes the passage between Scylla and Charybdis, and it is the only moment in Odysseus's wanderings when he deliberately seeks an experience that he knows may kill him. The Sirens' promise of omniscience—that they know all that happened at Troy and all that will happen over the whole world—tempts Odysseus with the very knowledge that the epic itself claims to convey through the Muse. By hearing the song and surviving, Odysseus becomes the sole mortal who has both witnessed the Sirens' truth and lived to tell it, a feat that underpins his authority as the narrator of Books 9 through 12. The episode also dramatizes the paradox of heroic autonomy: Odysseus achieves his unique knowledge only by submitting to absolute physical constraint, and his will is enforced not by his own strength but by the obedience of his crew, who bind him more tightly precisely when he most desires freedom.