It was said that the song of the sirens could seduce sailors to their destruction. So luring were their voices that men would discard thoughts of all else and plunge to their deaths in the sea. To save himself from that fate, Odysseus bounded himself to the mast of his ship so that he may listen to the sirens' song without objecting himself to the peril. Likewise, a milder sense of that same peril was reflected in the incident of the lotus-eaters. Those who consumed the honeyed plant would fall into a blissful state, forgetting their homeland, losing all desire to return. Odysseus, knowing that such transformation was not natural, bounded his companions to his ship until their senses returned, no longer under the effects of the lotus. Throughout the many adventures of our hero from the Odyssey, these two incidents correlate with one another better than any other.
             The theme of both the perils of the sirens and the lotus-eaters was attraction. The sirens' song lured sailors to their doom, while in a less drastic sense the effect of the lotus drew the minds of Odysseus' companions away. It was also this attraction and desire that presented the threat or danger in both cases. The attraction of the sirens would lead the men, who were oblivious to the danger, to their deaths while the attraction of the lotus erased all thoughts of home from the minds of the crew. Finally, seeing how the victims of these perils did not have the ability to save themselves, Odysseus had to use force to remove them from danger.
             Despite their similarities, there were more than enough distinctions to differentiate between the two events. For example, while the sirens lured with their hypnotic song, the danger of the lotus-eaters was present in the mind-altering plant. Likewise, sirens wielded their power at sea while the lotus-eaters dwelled on land. More importantly, the consequences of these potent songs and plants were quite different. The ...