The headword is accusative plural, evidently quoted from somewhere. The first paragraph of the lengthy gloss is also in the Synagoge (sigma41) and Photius' Lexicon (sigma117 Theodoridis); similarly in Hesychius sigma348.
The Sirens (OCD(4) s.v.; RE 5A, 288-308) are best known to us from the two who sing to Odysseus, bound to his mast to avoid their seduction, in Homer's Odyssey (12.158-200, cf. 39-54, web address 1, web address 2), and from those overpowered by Orpheus in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica (4.891-919). Their treatment interests scholars today for what it says about attitudes to women in antiquity (see Cohen, Doherty). They are a very common type in ancient art from the 8th. Century B.C. onwards (see LIMC vols. 8 and, with Odysseus, 6; Neils, Leclercq-Marx, Coquin), usually with a bird's body (see note 1) and woman's head and chest, the reverse of this entry. No physical description of them is given in Homer. Euripides describes them as winged (Helen 167, web address 3); this becomes generalized in the iconography (e.g. web address 4). He also describes their songs as mournful (cf. note 9).
The myth was variously explained in antiquity, either from natural phenomena, as here (cf. Eustathius, see bibliography), or as an allegory (see Coquin, Buffière, Wedner, Rahner, Buschor). There are four general classes of allegory that provide explication:
(i) The Sirens are female monsters who seduce the soul from its purpose by songs promising either knowledge and fame (alpha 4402, cf. Segal ch.5) or pleasure beyond the normal. They were perhaps originally the souls of the dead menacing those still alive (Weicker, Germain 382ff., Buffière 475).
(ii) They represent all dangers posed to men by the sexuality and love songs of loose women (see the excellent treatment and references, esp. to the Byzantine tradition, in Courcelle), cf. the proverb here, "The song of pleasure leads to no good, only death."
(iii) As companions to Persephone (Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 4.896-98), they are angels of death (cf. Proclus, in Cratylum, 239.7-12) who, either after death (Plutarch, Quaestiones conviviales 745D-E) or before, summon the soul of the wise man to leave behind the corporeal world for its spiritual home (Buffière 473-81). They also are responsible for the music of the spheres (sigma 281).
(iv) They represent the attraction, in a positive sense, of superior knowledge (Cicero, de Finibus 5.48ff.; Eustathius 1708.50; Coquin 70-74).
The concept of Siren continued to evolve in Judeo-Christian hermeneutics (See notes 5, 7, and 9 below; cf. Courcelle, Leclercq, Rahner, Coquin) and in literature. J.B. Bossuet in his Maxims and Reflexions on Comedy described the stars of his day as, "These sirens, who make their homes in the temples of pleasure, whose regard is deadly, and who receive from every side, through the applause they are given, the very poison that they spread by their singing." The "Siren song" (sigma 282) was not always regarded as a danger; it gradually became a term for any beautiful song sung to instrumental accompaniment by a female musician (cf. the citation here from Paulus the Silentiarius). The phrase proved a challenge to modern composers and popular novelists.
The Greek term for Siren is not to be confused with the homonymic accusative seirh/n (seirh/ or "cord") in (e.g.) sigma 278 and chi 564 -- (a) golden cord: Plato says that the sun is described by Homer in this way (Plato, Theaetetus 153C-D, referring to Homer, Iliad 8.19).
[1] The word strouqo/s, traditionally translated "sparrow", is used for a pet bird of antiquity associated with Aphrodite. The word may be generic for any bird representing Aphrodite. It was later used for the ostrich, otherwise strouqoka/mhlos (lambda 497), the bird used by the Hebrew prophets to evoke the prophesied desolation of Babylon and Edom (see notes 5 and 7 below).
[2] The word muqo/logos here means 'interpreter of myth' rather than 'writer of myth'.
[3] Literally, "And the song of pleasure has as its outcome, besides nothing good, only death." See also Prefatory Comments.
[4] For this sense of ligura/, see LSJ as applied to the Sirens and to birds. See Homer, Odyssey 12, for commensurate descriptions of the Sirens' song (e.g., crying beauty, sweet airs, lovely voices, haunting song).
[5] Isaiah 13.21, 34.13, 43.20 (see KJV, RSV and the Vulgate of these passages). The Hebrew word for a female ostrich is יַעֲנָה ya'anâh, probably derived from its reputation for voracity (Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 419: y'n et seq.). The Septuagint's substitution of siren for ostrich is attributable to both figures being associated with death and desolation, as in the Isaiah verses cited above and Homer, Odyssey 12.39ff. As we are told by Origen (Fragm. in Lamentationes 96) and Basil (Enarratio in Isaiam 13.275.29ff.), respectively, Symmachus and Aquila of Pontus used the correct translation "ostriches" in their Greek versions, collated by Origen in his Hexapla (omega 182 note 33; R.E. Brown et al., The New Jerome Bible Commentary, 1990, 1094.83-86; epsilon 542). For these, see also Hatch and Redpath, 1297; but also 1262 for variants.
[6] The term is a neologism of the Septuagint (Lust, II.333). These creatures occur in Septuagintal Isaiah in the same contexts as sirens (13.22, 34.11, 34.14; cf. note 5) and at Hesychius omicron905. According to Aelian (NA 17.9) they (in the feminine) were tailless apes.
[7] In the first two passages cited above, Isaiah prophesies that ostriches (in the Hebrew, or sirens in the Greek) will inhabit Babylon or Edom after their desolation. In the third, they are inhabitants of desolate Babylon who will honor God during Israel's return from Babylonian captivity. The literal sense of the participial phrase is: "in this manner are they prophesied in connection with a city's desolation brought about by God's wrath." For this sense of xrhmatizo/menoi, see Lust, II.519; Danker, 1089.1b; this is a Judeo-Christian application--an expansion on the citations at web address 5).
[8] The phrase implies that they flew up through the lower a)h/r into the aether, the "ethereal" region of the upper atmosphere immediately below the heavens, through which, in ancient belief, gods moved to visit men and, in the Christian belief, human souls attained the kingdom of God. Compare Dante's image of lower air "mists" (so, a)h/r; LSJ) in the Purgatorio, Canto 2 with that of "luminous air" (so, ai)qh/r; LSJ) when nearing Heaven in the Purgatorio, Canto 29. The myth of the "swan song" was widespread, usually of a song accompanying their death, as is implied but not expressed here. The Sirens were associated with swans in Greek art.
[9] See note 1. Job 30.29 is accurately rendered from the Hebrew by Crenshaw (NRSV, 782), "I am a brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches." Brenton (687) translates the LXX, "I am become a brother of monsters (footnoting, "sirens"), and a companion of ostriches (strouqw=n)." The KJV mistranslates, "I am a brother to dragons, and companion to owls" (for "ostriches"). For additional LXX references to sirens in the context of lamentation. The Siren's song as one of lamentation is found in a Sophoclean fragment (OCD) and in Euripides' Helen (167-73, web address 4), and is reinforced in Christian allegory.
[10] See note 1.
[11] Greek Anthology 5.241.6-7 (Paulus the Silentiarius). Find further excerpts from this epigram at alpha 2063, alpha 4722, and delta 85.
[12] Respectively, "enchanting singer, mind controller, sweet sounding." Eustathius says that they were two, as in Homer and most art, named Thelxiepeia and Aglaopheme ("splendid, prophetic voice from heaven"), but later Lycophron and others made them three, Parthenope ("maiden face", of whom there was a statue in Naples, nu 115), Ligeia and Leucosia ("bright, clear voice"). Aristotle apparently, in a passage cited perhaps inexactly by John the Lydian (On Months/De mensibus fr. incert. 4.7; cf. OCD(4) 873), named the three as Thelxiepeia, Aglaopheme and Pasinoe ("omniscient", see OCD for this attribute).
[13] According to the scholia on Homer, Odyssey 12.39, they were banished by Aphrodite, after they took a vow of eternal virginity, to an island of this name in the Tyrrhenian Sea west of Italy (cf. Eustathius). The three islets Parthenope, Leukosia and Ligeia that made up the "Siren islands" *seirh/nousai (Strabo 1.12.2ff.; Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica 559) are today identified with Li Galli, SW of Positano. This would fit with the traditional geography of Odysseus' wanderings. Anthemousa 'flowery' (cf. Homer's 'flowery meadow' at Odyssey 12.159) was also the ancient name for the island of Samos.