Seduction and the Secret Power of Women

An exploration of humanity's age-old fascination with Sirens - Explains the Sirens' half-human, half-animal bodies as a metaphor for the psychological challenge that their myth has always embodied - Fully illustrated in color with works by Rubens, Bosch, Munch, Magritte, and others Their celestial voices drove mast-lashed Ulysses nearly out of his mind with libidinous promises as they beckoned him ever-closer to paradise--or a rocky death. With womanly torsos and animal lower halves, usually birds or fish, Sirens have long been symbols of the lure of desire--the feminine, as seducer--beckoning men to mystery beyond their ken, or to disaster. This book is both a celebration of Sirens and an examination of the psychology of dichotomy--the diametrically opposed drives and inherent conflicts underlying this female archetype. Since antiquity, Sirens and their mermaid sisters have maintained an ongoing affair of the heart with humanity's greatest writers and artists. Sirens play important roles in the classical