What Does siren Mean
The Latin word sirēna derived from mermaid , a term that refers to a mythological figure that, at first, named a creature with the body of a bird and the torso of a woman . Over time, however, the idea of a mermaid began to be associated with a half-fish-half-woman creature .
Despite being a creature that belongs to folklore, it has transcended all barriers, from cultural to temporal, as it appears in stories around the world, even today. The ancient Egyptians used the image of the mermaid that combined the appearance of a bird with that of a woman to symbolize the soul force known as ba .
Ba is a masculine term that represents the animate force that remains of each human being after his death, something that can also be interpreted as his spiritual personality or his soul. This concept belongs to Egyptian mythology and, as expressed in the previous paragraph, it is symbolized by the image of a mermaid with the body of a bird and the head of a woman.
The role of the ba was very important to Egyptian culture, since thanks to its mobility it could maintain a link between the Earth and the world of the gods. He was a mediator between the two planes, who also assisted the deceased on their journey to meet their ka , the life force of the human spirit that remained in the tomb.
Thanks to the wings that gave it the mermaid aspect, the ba had the possibility to constantly move between one world and another; in fact, he did it daily, since every night he returned from the celestial realm and stayed in the body of the deceased. The corpse contained the ka, and both components needed each other, which is why if someone removed the remains, the ba would also disappear.
Over time, the Church played a fundamental role in the new conception of the mermaid, which replaced the bird part with the fish part. This happened in the ninth century, and then the siren began to represent voluptuousness, and her song was the symbol of what the Church considered "false doctrines." Although in our language we use the same term for both versions of the siren, there are some in which each one has its own word.
Mermaids are nymphs : lower-ranking female deities that are often linked to a specific natural site. In the case of mermaids, mythology tells that they are found in the ocean and seduce sailors thanks to their song . The siren's voice, in fact, has the ability to cast a spell on men .
Throughout history , mermaids were represented in different ways. It is common to find mermaid figures with bare breasts or covered by hair. Usually the female part of mermaids is depicted with great beauty and harmonious lines.
Many literary and traditional stories feature mermaids. One of his most famous appearances is in the Odyssey , the poem attributed to Homer . In this story, Ulysses decides to cover the ears of his sailors so that, when crossing the sea, they are not bewitched by the song of the sirens. For his part, he has himself tied to the mast of the boat to listen to the sirens without jumping into the water.
"The Little Mermaid" , meanwhile, is a famous short story by Hans Christian Andersen that was adapted to the cinema with great success by Walt Disney Pictures in 1989 .