Siren Song

Music (and the lack thereof) is a primary motif in Margaret Atwood’s “Siren Song.” From Greek myth comes the tale of the sirens who sing a song so compelling, it sends ships and men to wreck themselves against the rocks. The implication is that it is unbearably beautiful, or that it will impart something too great for mortals to suffer. For most of the poem, the song is kept from the reader/listener. In its place, the siren bargains and complains—and rather prosaically, at that. She seems to be a songless, as well as flightless, bird. Readers don’t really understand that the song has been sung until it’s over and it’s just the same old tune—irresistible, maybe, but utterly forgettable. In this case, melody is lost to the intimacy of the whispered lyric: “Come closer. This song” (Line 21).

The rule of three is a significant motif in “Siren Song.” Atwood chooses to write the poem in tercets, or stanzas composed of three lines. There are nine stanzas, and three is the cube root of nine. In this iteration of the siren myth, three sirens live on the island. In art and design, three signifies a grouping that the eye finds pleasing; three objects form a grouping that the brain doesn’t need to further divide into smaller groupings to make sense of it.