PARTHENOPE'S BURDEN.

ISBN 978-0-9560289-6-9

Who were the Sirens? And what did their singing sound like? According to myth very few mariners ever heard those divine harmonies and lived to tell the tale. In Homer’s Odyssey there are two sirens, neither of them named, but in later narratives their numbers vary; three, four, five. Logic and consistency are not characteristics of the creative psyche. Post-Homeric tradition asserts that, if a mortal succeeds in hearing the music of these bird-footed temptresses, and survives, then the singers themselves will die, and this is the myth behind the founding of Naples, a siren-city if ever there was one. By means of a clever trick Odysseus heard the Sirens singing, but did not die. Consequently, the drowned body of Parthenope was washed up on the neighbouring shore, giving her name to the first Greek settlement, founded there four thousand years ago.

Sirens, Naples, Italy, the south in particular, alluring voices and magical journeys; these are the themes of this collection. In part I the women of the Odyssey speak, in part II myths and legends are explored and retold, in part III the real world begins to manifest, but never completely independant of the dreaming realms. 

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