HeroesX | Hour 10 Episode 07: Text D and the Song of the Sirens

Gregory Nagy and Camilla Finlay read Hour 10, Text D, the Sirens' song to Odysseus, and find it far less menacing than its popular reputation suggests. The danger, Nagy argues, is not that the song is simply erotic or deceitful but that it is genuinely beautiful, and that its real content is the story of Troy itself, the Iliadic tradition that Odysseus succeeded at where Achilles failed. If Odysseus lingers to hear it, he will never have his nostos, the Greek word neesthai for going home, so he has to be tempted and then move on to a different kind of epic, a song about homecoming rather than Troy. Along the way Nagy notes that the original Greek makes clear there are two Sirens, not three as in some local Bay of Naples traditions, and calls them false Muses who work against an odyssey rather than for one. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introducing Text D, the Sirens' song to Odysseus 00:24 Camilla Finlay reads the English translation 01:06 Why the Sirens seem less threatening than expected 01:32 A beautiful song, not just alluring or deceitful 02:31 What the Sirens are really promising to sing 02:53 Why hearing it would mean never getting home 03:18 Neesthai, the Greek word for having a nostos 03:34 The Iliad tradition and why it threatens Odysseus 04:26 Getting over Troy to find a different kind of epic 04:38 Two Sirens, not three, and the Bay of Naples tradition 05:51 False Muses, working against an odyssey 06:16 Choosing a nostos over an Iliad of his own ABOUT THIS SERIES HeroesX, also known as The Ancient Greek Hero, is an open-access learning project created by Professor Gregory Nagy and first launched in 2013. It grew out of Harvard's longest-running course, "The Ancient Greek Hero," which Nagy has taught for over fifty years. Since the project's launch, more than 172,000 participants from over 170 countries have joined. It invites everyone, with or without prior experience, to read closely from some of the most beautiful works of ancient Greek literature in English translation: the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, songs of Sappho and Pindar, dialogues of Plato, and selections from On Heroes by Philostratus. Throughout the project, Nagy and his team model techniques for reading out of these works inductively, so that learners can begin to see this literature as an exquisite system of communication. It is not a graded course. It is content, community, and conversation that many participants describe as transformative. ABOUT THE NEW ALEXANDRIA FOUNDATION For more than a decade, HeroesX has welcomed learners from around the world, and it now finds a new home at the New Alexandria Foundation, which expands access to the comparative study of civilizations, ancient and modern. Through technology and community, we foster living humanistic dialogues, open to all and enduring across generations. The full HeroesX video library lives on this YouTube channel, and NAF shares the surrounding content, including primary readings, exercises, and resources, to support your reading. 🌐 https://newalexandriafoundation.org/ RESOURCES 🏛️ HeroesX home on Classical Continuum: https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/her... 📘 Read Gregory Nagy's book, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, free online with illustrations: https://chs.harvard.edu/book/nagy-gre... 📚 Read or download the Sourcebook online (English translations of all the texts discussed in the book and in HeroesX): https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/the... ✉️ Be the first to hear about HeroesX developments and join an upcoming cohort: https://mailchi.mp/9a41aac39c45/6cnmu... ❤️ Love this work? Help keep HeroesX free and growing with a gift to the New Alexandria Foundation: https://newalexandriafoundation.org/d... #AncientGreek #HeroesX #GregoryNagy #Homer #Iliad #Odyssey #GreekMythology #ClassicalLiterature #Humanities #NewAlexandriaFoundation