"Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood

Siren Song

BY MARGARET ATWOOD

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn: the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men

to leap overboard in squadrons

even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who has heard it

is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only to you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

at last. Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time.

I chose “Siren Song” by Margaret Atwood, not only because of the tough shifts in tone, but also because of the allusion to Greek mythology—which, if you’ve met me, you know I LOVE Greek mythology. The Sirens were bird women who sat on an island in the Aegean Sea and sang such alluring songs to the passing sailors that they jumped overboard and drowned. On his way back to Ithaca from Troy, Odysseus passed the Siren island. Instead of plugging his ears with wax to block out the song like the rest of his sailors did, Odysseus insisted that he be tied to the mast so he could hear the Siren song, the most beautiful song in the world, and live. He was the only Greek, hero or otherwise, to have survived the song. This myth isn’t brought up in the poem, since Atwood writes what she imagined the actual song to be like. This Siren’s biggest draw was the clandestine nature of the song, the fact that she would tell the secret to any sailor who tried to save her. Clearly, that doesn’t happen.

I find this poem challenging because of the several emotional shifts, some of which are hard to see at a quick glance. The first, and I think the most important, shift occurs when the Siren moves into first person: “Shall I tell you the secret”. This is when she really starts to spin her song and draw in the helpless sailors who hear it. It becomes much more personal, which contrasts with the sense of detachment show in the last three lines of the poem. The first three stanzas center around the song itself, giving warnings and information about it. Then, when the shift to first person happens, the Siren causes the reader (or the sailor) to sympathize with her, since she wants to escape the island that she sits on and share the secret of the song with anyone who saves her. Then, the sailor drowns and the Siren breaks her song that “works every time”.

Life lesson: don’t sail in the Aegean without earplugs.