th it, turns men into beasts, but
does not slay them,--leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. She
is herself indeed an Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--or
degrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the ship
invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost); even the wild beasts
rejoice and are softened around her cave; the transforming poisons she
gives to men are mixed with no rich feast, but with pure and right
nourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour; that is, wine, milk, and
corn, the three great sustainers of life--it is their own fault if these
make swine of them; (see Appendix V.) and swine are chosen merely as the
type of consumption; as Plato's [Greek: hyon polis], in the second book
of the _Polity_, and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of
the likeness in variety of nourishment, and internal form of body.

"Et quel est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'etre
bati au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"

"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne faudra pas m'en
vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est pas precisement flatteur
pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous la, et si cela vous contrarie par
trop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses
fussent arrangees ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu'a manger,
a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous et c'est toujours une
consolation."--_(Histoire d'une Bouchee de Pain_, Lettre ix.)

92. But the deadly Sirens are in all things opposed to the Circean
power. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in no
wise; but slay by slow death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and
the head, instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery
from their power; they do not tear nor scratch, like Scylla, but the men
who have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that the
Sirens' field is covered, not merely with the bones, but with the
_skins_, of those who have been consumed there. They address themselves,
in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of
Ulysses, but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within
hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who silenced the
vain imaginations by singing the praises of the gods.

93. It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm or
deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that she says it was her song
that deceived Ulys