"Homer had the head of a fool." Sniped Mithras as he surveyed the Honeyed Isle
from the prow of the Galley.

"Sorry, what?" Enquired Aias, from inside his reverie.

"I was saying Homer was a fool."

"Homer? Oh Homer. The storyteller. I thought he told a pretty enough tale. It
made a powerful antidote to the mumblings of the Prophets of doom that dwell in
the glory of the Parthenon in these days."

"Maybe it is so, but he was still a fool."

"Why?"

"That tale of the Sirens. He got it all wrong."

"Such are the tales of the scribes. Why do you bring that up now?"

"Because, my friend, there is the Isle." His arm swept across the horizon to the
ochre coloured island passing across their port bow.

Aias fingered the bronze figurine that he kept hidden in the folds of his cloak,
and mumbled a furtive prayer, before continuing nervously. "Should we not tie
ourselves with the mast to our backs?"

"By Zeus, you coward, did I not tell you that the myth was just that. A myth.
They will not harm you. They have been tamed."

"But the Legend?" Murmured Aias.

"Is but a legend." He slapped his shivering friend on the back. "Come let us to
our Libation and I will sing the real tale."

So with the goblets of wine, mulled from the slopes of Mykenai itself, they
settled on the cushions of fine cloth. They watched the mighty exertions of the
oarsmen for some minutes before Mithras deigned to entertain his friend with the
tale.

"It was the brave Ulysses, on his way back from the mighty battle where Achilleus
smote Hektor and brought Troy to heel, that first encountered this Isle."

Aias nodded. Even the urchins that dodged between the columns of the temples knew
this much. Mithras noted his friends' beck.

"Ah my friend. You understand. But did you know that the Odysseus himself did not
rope himself to the mast like a common criminal, or a quivering maiden, but
instead and with great resolution, he did plunder the Isle. Alone and without his
shield and mighty studded spear, he bestrode the bewitching beaches, with the
beguiling songs smiting his fair ears.  While his men lay shivering in the bowels
of his ship, with the goats and the slops."

"So why did the singer, Homer, weave such a poem?"

"Men of Chios!" Sighed his companion. "Their tiny island closes their minds. Who
but Zeus could tell. Maybe it was because they were in envy. But this much I will
tell. He was wrong. The victory that Ulysses carved from the heart of that island
was as powerful as any great glory told by the seers. Even the battles of the
mighty Agamemnon himself..  Alone and naked he went into the bosom of the sirens,
where many men had perished before him. And naked and alone he walked away, head
held high. A plume of gold upon his sparkling locks. Glory shining around him and
the laughter of the Gods rolling from the heights of Olympus itself."

"But what of the Sirens. Was not he bewitched by their teasing songs and their
mists of deception?"

"Ah yes. But he knew. The mighty warrior knew. He understood their wants, their
needs, their lamentations whispered to him on the wind of their sorrow, which
underlay their luring of men. They needed the mightiest weapon of all and, naked
and proud, he conquered them with it."

"This mighty weapon of which you speak, which is it? Was he not naked, was he not
unarmed. Without his spear, or his sword or his shield. What of this mighty
weapon?"

"It was the mighty weapon of his manhood. A full sixth hexameter tall and as
proud and upstanding as the fighter himself. It was with this weapon he laid bare
the songs of the sirens and silenced them into as pretty a poem of love as had
ever been told by a maiden on the morn following her wedding night."

"Do you mean.......?"

"Yes my friend. The songs you see, were the songs of a maiden that does not have
the pleasure of the hardness of a man's thews cleaving their body, for aeon after
aeon. They were the songs of despair and of unfulfilled passion. Twenty maidens
alone on a rock with no man to calm them and pleasure their bodies. It was no
wonder that their songs were so plaintive and carried such misery. So the mighty
Ulysses took them to his pallet and cleaved them until their songs were stilled.
For three nights he toiled and afterwards he strode back with a back as straight
as a bronze spear. They say that the maidens lined the beach, naked and pinkly
happy, as he sailed away and forever after there were the sounds of happiness and
frivolity on the isle. Listen to the wind my friend and agree with me that Homer
was a fool."