Sirens. Sea nymphs with the wings and feet of birds, the Sirens inhabited one or more small, rocky islands in the Mediterranean. Their beautiful singing lured sailors to their death on the rocks. The Sirens were daughters of a Muse (Terpsichore or Melpomene) and the river-god Achelous. Homer identifies two Sirens without naming them, but there are usually three: Ligeia, Leucosia, and Parthenope. According to Apollodorus, the three were accompanied on the lyre and lute as well as in singing.
    The Sirens are best known from the passage in the Odyssey in which Odysseus contrives to hear the Sirens' song safely by having himself tied to the mast and plugging his sailors' ears with wax, but they figure in other myths as well. When the Argo passed the island, Orpheus's lute playing distracted the Argonauts and saved them from the Sirens' spell. Pausanias records that Hera persuaded the Sirens to compete with the Muses in song; when the Muses won the contest, they plucked the Sirens' feathers for headdresses. According to Ovid, they had once been human maidens, companions of Persephone, who asked the gods for wings to help them look for their kidnapped friend. Others say that their transformation was Demeter's punishment for failing to prevent her daughter's abduction.

Further Reference:
   Rachowiltz, Siegfried de. 1987. De Sirenibus: an inquiry into Sirens from Homer to Shakespeare. New York: Garland.

   Grafton, Most & Settis The Classical Tradition (2010) cites also
   Austern, L. and I. Naroditskaya. 2006. Music of the Sirens. Bloomington.
   Bettini, M. and L. Spina. 2005. Il mito delle sirene: imaggini e racconti dalla Grecia a oggi. Torino.
   Cavarero, A. 2005. For More Than One Voice: philosophy of vocal expression. Stanford University Press.
   Rachowiltz, S. de. 1987. Op. Cit. supr.

Other entries in OGCMA include references to the Sirens: Jason and the Argonauts; OdysseusSirens; Parthenope; and Persephone