Ulysses having communicated her instructions, as far as related to the Sirens, to his companions, who had not been present at that interview; but concealing from them the rest, as he had done the terrible predictions of Tiresias, that they might not be deterred by fear from pursuing their voyage:  the time for departure being come, they set their sails, and took a final leave of great Circe; who by her art calmed the heavens, and gave them smooth seas, and a right fore wind (the seaman’s friend) to bear them on their way to Ithaca.

They had not sailed past a hundred leagues before the breeze which Circe had lent them suddenly stopped.  It was stricken dead.  All the sea lay in prostrate slumber.  Not a gasp of air could be felt.  The ship stood still.  Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off, and that they had charmed the air so with their devilish singing.  Therefore he made him cakes of wax, as Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears of his men with them:  then causing himself to be bound hand and foot, he commanded the rowers to ply their oars and row as fast as speed could carry them past that fatal shore.  They soon came within sight of the Sirens, who sang in Ulysses’ hearing: 

  Come here, thou, worthy of a world of praise,
  That dost so high the Grecian glory raise;
  Ulysses! stay thy ship; and that song hear
  That none past ever, but it bent his ear,
  But left him ravish’d, and instructed more
  By us, than any, ever heard before. 
  For we know all things, whatsoever were
  In wide Troy labour’d; whatsoever there
  The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain’d: 
  By those high issues that the gods ordain’d: 
  And whatsoever all the earth can show
  To inform a knowledge of desert, we know.

These were the words, but the celestial harmony of the voices which sang them no tongue can describe:  it took the ear of Ulysses with ravishment.  He would have broke his bonds to rush after them; and threatened, wept, sued, entreated, commanded, crying out with tears and passionate imprecations, conjuring his men by all the ties of perils past which they had endured in common, by fellowship and love, and the authority which he retained among them, to let him loose; but at no rate would they obey him.  And still the Sirens sang.  Ulysses made signs, motions, gestures, promising mountains of gold if they would set him free; but their oars only moved faster.  And still the Sirens sung.  And still the more he adjured them to set him free, the faster with cords and ropes they bound him; till they were quite out of hearing of the Sirens’ notes, whose effect great Circe had so truly predicted.  And well she might speak of them, for often she had joined her own enchanting voice to theirs, while she has sat in the flowery meads, mingled with the Sirens and the Water Nymphs, gathering their potent herbs and drugs of magic quality:  their singing altogether has made the gods stoop, and “heaven drowsy with the harmony.”