How did Odysseus get past the Sirens?
How did Odysseus get past the Sirens? Our answer below is sourced directly from the text of The Odyssey, and includes key passages from the text to support it.
Odysseus got past the Sirens by having his men bind him to the mast of the ship, plug their ears with wax so they could not hear the Sirens' song, and bind him more tightly if he begged them to set him free. Additionally, Circe warned Odysseus that he must pass the Wanderers, two rocks that no ship had ever sailed past before, and that the only way to do so was to have Juno pilot the ship. To ensure their safety, Circe also advised Odysseus and his men to stay on the island for the rest of the day and feast before continuing their voyage the next morning. Odysseus also faced many other obstacles on his journey, including the Cicons, the Lotus-eaters, the Cyclops, Aeolus, the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, the cunning Circe, the chill house of Hades, the Sirens, the Wanderers, Charybdis, Scylla, the cattle of the sun-god, the Ogygian island and the nymph Calypso. Despite all these challenges, Odysseus was eventually able to make it past the Sirens.
Here are the top passages from The Odyssey related to the question:
“Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, ‘My friends, it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.’
“‘So far so good,’ said she, when I had ended my story, ‘and now pay attention to what I am about to tell you—heaven itself, indeed, will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross piece half way up the mast,[99] and they must lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster.
