"First you will raise the island of the Sirens,
those creatures who spellbind any man alive,
whoever comes their way. Whoever draws too close,
off guard, and catches the Sirens’ voices in the air –
no sailing home for him, no wife rising to meet him,
no happy children beaming up at their father’s face.
The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him,
lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses
rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 12, lines 44-52. Circe prophesies that on Odysseus’ journey home he will pass by the powerful and deadly Sirens. She warns what happens to men who sail near the mythical female monsters and are ensnared by their song. For those who hear their voices, there will be no homecoming. So she advises Odysseus to block his shipmates’ ears with beeswax, but if he wishes to hear the Sirens, to have his men tie him hand and foot to the mast-block.