The Sirens Make a Collect Call
My crew heartily pulled on their oars in harmony with the ocean waves, but before long a canvas-bellying breeze set the ship easily on its way. This freed me to take a cake of beeswax and cut it up into pieces. I rolled the chunks between my hands until they formed soft, sweet smelling, yellow balls.
I gave my crew instructions to tie me to the mast as tightly as if it were a splint to my back. We were about to pass the island of the Sirens.
I told them should I cry out while we were within earshot, then they must simply bind me even tighter to the mast. But under no circumstances were they to remove the wax from their ears or to untie me unless we were well away from these enticing nymphs. I carefully plugged each one's ears with the wax balls. It was like placing pearls within living oysters. I then allowed myself to be bound, feeling the bite of course twine around my torso.
A dead calm came over the ship of a sudden. My crew took in the sail and then set themselves before the rowlocks once more. Again they sent oarblades slicing through the waters. Except for their plash an eery silence descended as we approached the rocky shores of the Siren's home.
Two of those unearthly creatures noted the passage of our swift ship and began singing, soon to be joined by their siblings in this song:
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Boys and girls, If the moon is shining Hey nonny nonny! It's one of the commoner It is Spring! It is Spring! An epicene voice It is Spring! It is Spring! Spring is what winter It is Spring! Is it Spring? No, it couldn't be Spring!
(The Passionate Pagan and the Dispassionate Public
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I struggled and screamed for release. I must join with this universal melliphony. I could hardly experience myself as anything but a single wave of sound. Eurylokhos and Perimedes leapt up and secured me even more firmly to that awful wooden pole, wrapping loop upon loop of rope around my body.
Extremes of pain or pleasure have no distinction and time becomes neither long nor short. At some point my crew peeled the wax out of their ears and set me free.