Parthenope's Face

Parthenope is not the most known of the Sirens.
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?

Foreword

This blog is the English version of the one I have been editing since 2012 in Italian and that was intended as a logbook describing the work-in-progress of my historic novels about brilliant, little-known moments of the ancient Naples' history.
With time I grew conscious of the quality of the work done, and thought about expanding the readers' base to the English-speaking world, in search for the opportunities that this step would bring: English language publishers, movie writers, tourist trip organizers, you name it.
The blog covers different parts of my creative process, starting from the analysis of the Greek and Latin historical and literary sources all the way to the introduction of excerpts from my novels. The reason for such a wide approach to the novels is that my novels are really the fruit of all this massive work: the Greek and Latin sources often give conflicting versions of the events they report, and seldom they conflict with the reality of the times or places reported.
My novels are thus the result of the attempt to be inspired by those chronicles, give them a coherence, produce a novel that satisfied my taste. This whole work was a growing up and gratifying experience.
Of course, this whole effort was much stronger than what strictly needed to write the novels, not all that I found and read could find its way into them, nor it could be explained there: the novels are a plece where to tell one tale, not the history of Greek/Roman Neapolis. This blog is also the chance to recollect all that material for the curious reader, for he who wants to know more about it.
For such a reader, the main page is thus the one listing the bibliographic sources.
Next to this, to titillate your curiosity and wishing that you will appreciate it, there is a page of excerpts from the novels.
Another page describes the temporal evolution of this project.
I wish that you will like this setting and wish to know your opinion about it. Write in plenty!