So they sang, waving their white arms, beckoning with smiles and twanging their golden lyres. And their voice floating over the waters was sweet in the ears of travel-worn Ulysses--so sweet indeed, that forgetting the wise counsels of Circe, he called to his company to unbind him. But they, having their ears stopped with wax, could hear neither him nor the Sirens, and rowed more swiftly than before. So Ulysses made signs to them, nodding and frowning, whereupon two of them, Perimedes and Eurylochus, remembering his former words, rose and bound him yet faster to the mast. And bending their backs the rowers pulled their hardest, the curved keel shooting past the perilous shore. Fainter and fainter grew the song of the Sirens as now they were left behind, and their white arms could hardly be seen beckoning. And anon a breeze broke once more upon the deadly calm, and the sails being hoisted the ship was swept out to sea and the Isle of the Sirens became but a speck upon the horizon and was lost to view. So, by following the wise counsels of Circe of the braided tresses, the much-experienced Ulysses and all his comrades escaped the wiles of the Sirens who had enticed many to their death. But when the Sirens saw themselves at last defeated, their song was turned into a wail and their white robes seemed like wind-swept foam as they plunged beneath the wave. But the Sirens are immortal, and though no men can now behold their white bosoms pressing golden harps, yet their voices are still heard and still they sing the same song that they sang to Ulysses: "Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more."[4] FOOTNOTES: [3] Tennyson, "The Sea Fairies." [4] Tennyson, "The Lotos-Eaters." THE STORY OF NAUSICAA BY M. M. BIRD One night, Nausicaa, sole daughter of Alcinous, the Phæacian King, had a dream. She dreamt that the daughter of Dymas, her favorite playmate, stood at her bedside and gently chid her. "Shame upon thee, lie-a-bed," she cried, "to waste the shining hours. 'Twill soon be thy wedding-day, and thy bridal robe and the garments for thy bridesmaids have still to be washed and bleached. Get up and ask thy father to order for thee the wain and mules to draw it, and we'll all go a-washing, thou and I and our favorite playmates, to that clear pool where the river pauses before it plunges into the sea." At dawn Nausicaa awoke, but daylight did not dispel the dream, for it was Minerva herself who sent it. She waylaid her father as he went to the Council of the Elders and cried to him: "Father dear, may I have the high wain and the mules to-day? There is much soiled raiment to be washed--mine and thine and that of my three brothers who dwell with me in the palace." But of the bridal of her dream she said nothing, for she was a bashful maiden.