The myth regarding the Sirens gives them different name depending on the author: Pseudo-Apollodorus mentions Peisinoe, Aglaope and Thelxiepeia, others name Terpsichore, Melpomene and Sterope or Chthon, Homer does not give them any name. Their very number varies between two and five. The myth naming them as Leucosia, Ligeia and Parthenope (“virgin-voice”) is thus just one among many but, as it happens, is the one I am most interested in.
In my novels Parthenope herself tells her tale. It is worth noticing that, with her sister, she was transformed in a bird-woman (not a fish-maiden as the medieval traditions tell) by Demetra's wrath, as she was unable to protect her daughter Persephone from Hades' lust. Actually Hades even behaved as a gentleman: he was really in love with Persephone, he married her and made so that she could not have stayed far from him. At any new fall the maiden has to get back to her husband, whilst she could spend spring and summer with her mother to till the fields.
The temptation to explain here the chtonian meanings of the myth is strong, but this is not the time. If you wish so, I will be glad to prepare another post. Now I have to get back to Parthenope.
So, a bird-woman. Do we have images of that?
