Sirena

About this book

Offered immortality if they can win a man's love, Sirena's mermaid sisters use their silvery voices to lure sailors to them even though it will cause the sailors certain death. Sirena, however, exiles herself from this grim mating game and winds up on the island of Lemnos. There she meets the Greek warrior Philoctetes (the subject of a famous play by Sophocles). True to the legend, this Philoctetes has been abandoned by his crew mates because of a snake bite, but instead of spending the next 10 years letting his wounds fester, per the Sophoclean model, this hero falls in love with an equally adoring Sirena. She becomes immortal, a gift that she does not want in light of her lover's inability to share it, and then she must yield him up when fate calls upon him to reenter the Trojan War