Det här låter faktiskt som Odyssey , en av de två stora joniska grekiska epik från den blinde poeten Homer . I bok 12 möter Odysseus (bättre känd i många länder av sitt latinska namn Ulysses ) sirenerna. Havhäxan Circe beskriver dem sålunda:
So far so good,... 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, 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.
Syrenerna brukar avbildas i nutida verk som mermaids-delkvinna, delfisk (även om de gamla grekerna vanligtvis representerade dem som delkvinna, delfågel). Deras sångdrev (manliga) seglare till galenskap; männen dras ineluctably mot monster, tills deras fartyg förstörs på deras öns stenar.