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Mermaid

Author: John William Waterhouse

Date: 1901

Location: Royal Academy of Arts,
 London

LISTENING TO A MERMAID SINGING

MYTHOLOGY

Mermaids are mythological characters whose songs cast the sailors away because with the songs the sailors threw themselves into the reef. The sailors who were alive,were killed. When Ulysses was going to leave Circe Island, Circe told him what happened with the mermaids and gave him some recommendations that Ulysses used. When Ulysses got closer to the mermaid island, he requested  to be  tied  to  the mast while the sailors should earplug their ears. He  wanted to listen to the sweet songs of the mermaids following Circe's advice.

There are two representations of the mermaids which differ from the source, it depends on the pictorial representation used, these two versions depict the following representations:

1.Bird body and human head.

2.Half body as  fish and the other half as a woman.

Ulysses and the mermaids

Author: John William Waterhouse

Date: 1891

Location: National Gallery of Victoria,
 Australia

MEANING

You hear this expression when you listen to or make a discourse that sounds very good, but in fact it plays a trick.This expression comes from a mermaid and the first time it was recorded was in a poem “The Odyssey” by Homer.

Ulysses and the Sirens

Oil on canvas

Author: Herbert James Draper

Date: 1909

Location: Ferens Art Gallery, 
United Kingdom