The Gorgon is more monstrous, more savage, than any other of the Ker-forms. The Gorgoneion figures little in poetry though much in art. It is an underworld bogey but not human enough to be a ghost, it lacks wholly the gentle side of the Keres, and would scarcely have been discussed here, but that the art-type of the Gorgon lent, as will be seen, some of its traits to the Erinys, and notably the deathly distillation by which they slay: ‘From out their eyes they ooze a loathly rheum[507].’ THE KER AS SIREN[508]. The Sirens are to the modern mind mermaids, sometimes all human, sometimes fish-tailed, evil sometimes, but beautiful always. Milton invokes Sabrina from the waves by ‘... the songs of Sirens sweet, By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb, And fair Ligeia’s golden comb Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks.’ Homer by the magic of his song lifted them once and for all out of the region of mere bogeydom, and yet a careful examination, especially of their art form, clearly reveals traces of rude origin. Circe’s warning to Odysseus runs thus[509]: ‘First to the Sirens shalt thou sail, who all men do beguile. Whoso unwitting draws anigh, by magic of their wile, They lure him with their singing, nor doth he reach his home Nor see his dear wife and his babes, ajoy that he is come. For they, the Sirens, lull him with murmur of sweet sound Crouching within the meadow: about them is a mound Of men that rot in death, their skin wasting the bones around.’ Odysseus and his comrades, so forewarned, set sail[510]: ‘Then straightway sailed the goodly ship and swift the Sirens’ isle Did reach, for that a friendly gale was blowing all the while. Forthwith the gale fell dead, and calm held all the heaving deep In stillness, for some god had lulled the billows to their sleep.’ The song of the Sirens is heard[511]: ‘Hither, far-famed Odysseus, come hither, thou the boast Of all Achaean men, beach thou thy bark upon our coast, And hearken to our singing, for never but did stay A hero in his black ship and listened to the lay Of our sweet lips; full many a thing he knew and sailed away. For we know all things whatsoe’er in Troy’s wide land had birth And we know all things that shall be upon the fruitful earth.’ It is strange and beautiful that Homer should make the Sirens appeal to the spirit, not to the flesh. To primitive man, Greek or Semite, the desire to know—to be as the gods—was the fatal desire.