Circe directed Ulysses to fill the ears of his seamen
with wax, so that they should not hear the strain; and to cause
himself to be bound to the mast, and his people to be strictly
enjoined, whatever he might say or do, by no means to release him
till they should have passed the Sirens' island. Ulysses obeyed
these directions. He filled the ears of his people with wax, and
suffered them to bind him with cords firmly to the mast. As they
approached the Sirens' island, the sea was calm, and over the
waters came the notes of music so ravishing and attractive that
Ulysses struggled to get loose, and by cries and signs to his
people begged to be released; but they, obedient to his previous
orders, sprang forward and bound him still faster. They held on
their course, and the music grew fainter till it ceased to be
heard, when with joy Ulysses gave his companions the signal to
unseal their ears, and they relieved him from his bonds.
The imagination of a modern poet, Keats, has discovered for us the
thoughts that passed through the brains of the victims of Circe,
after their transformation. In his "Endymion" he represents one of
them, a monarch in the guise of an elephant, addressing the
sorceress in human language, thus:
"I sue not for my happy crown again;
I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;
I sue not for my lone, my widowed wife;
I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,
My children fair, my lovely girls and boys;
I will forget them; I will pass these joys,
Ask nought so heavenward; so too--too high;
Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die;
To be delivered from this cumbrous flesh,
From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,
And merely given to the cold, bleak air.
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