Desire with loathing strangely mix’d,
On wild and hateful objects fix’d;
Fantastic passions, maddening brawl,
And shame and terror over all.
When the modern poets turned the Sirens into mermaids, they vastly improved the breed. A woman, we grant, who is half a fish, is not a desideratum; but she is better than a great human-faced bird hopping about; and besides, the conformation of the creatures being thus altered, we are not so sure they will do us harm, especially as the poets treat them with comparative respect, sometimes even with tenderness. The names above mentioned acquire a double elegance in the adjurations of the Spirit in Comus:—
By Thetis’ tinsel-slipper’d feet,
And the songs of Sirens sweet,
By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb,
And fair Ligeia’s golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks.
These alluring locks come home to us. We have seen such at our elbows, and can hear the comb passing through them.
Spenser increased the number of the Sirens to five, and expressly designated them as mermaids:—
And now they nigh approached to the stead
Whereas those mermaids dwelt. It was a still
And calmy bay, on th’ one side sheltered
With the broad shadow of an hoary hill;
On th’ other side an high rock towered still,
That ’twixt them both a pleasant port they made,
And did like an half theatre fulfil.
There those five sisters had continual trade,
And used to bathe themselves in that deceiptful shade.
—Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12.
This line is so soft and gently drawn out, and the place so sweet and natural, that when Sirens like these begin to sing, we really feel in danger. We do not wonder that the poet’s hero desired his boatman to
Row easily,
And let him hear some part of their rare melody.
