Sirens Trivia
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96 free Sirens trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This sirens trivia quiz is about the singing creatures of Greek mythology who lured sailors onto the rocks, and about everything that has borrowed their name since. Easy questions cover the story everyone half-remembers: how Odysseus survived their song, what his crew stuffed in their ears, who told him the trick, and how Orpheus got the Argonauts past. From there it digs into what the Greeks actually thought sirens looked like (birds, not fish), who their parents were, how the Muses humiliated them, and why some versions say the sirens died the day Odysseus sailed by. The harder end is for mythology buffs and classicists: Parthenope and the founding of Naples, the Li Galli islands, Butes and Aphrodite, Isidore of Seville's prostitutes, the medieval bestiaries that turned sirens into mermaids with combs and mirrors, Dante's dream, Kafka's silent sirens, the Ulysses pact and Etty, Waterhouse and Draper's paintings. A final stretch covers the siren's afterlife in the sea cows, the warning device, the Starbucks logo, Debussy, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and television. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the sirens, the Odyssey and the works they inspired before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Greek mythology, Odyssey and mermaids quizzes next.
30 of 96 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which ancient Greek epic do the sirens make their first appearance?
The Odyssey
The Odyssey, Book 12, is the sirens' earliest surviving appearance; Homer gives their song and their island meadow but never describes their physical form.
Q 02What did Odysseus' crew plug their ears with to avoid hearing the sirens?
Beeswax
Odysseus softened a cake of beeswax in the sun and pressed it into each crewman's ears; he alone listened, his own ears left unplugged.
Q 03How did Odysseus manage to hear the sirens' song without being lured to his death?
He had himself tied to the mast
Odysseus had himself tied to the mast and ordered the crew to ignore his pleas; when he signalled to be freed, Perimedes and Eurylochus bound him tighter.
Q 04Which sorceress advised Odysseus on how to survive the sirens?
Circe
Circe, who had earlier turned his men into swine on Aeaea, warned Odysseus about the sirens before he sailed and told him how to pass them safely.
Q 05How were sirens usually depicted in early Greek art?
As birds with women's heads
Archaic and classical Greek vases show sirens as birds with women's heads, a form possibly influenced by the Egyptian ba-bird; the fish-tailed image arrived centuries later.
Q 06How many sirens does Homer say there were?
Two
Homer uses the grammatical dual for the sirens, implying exactly two; later writers such as Apollodorus raised the count to three and gave them names.
Q 07Which musician saved the Argonauts from the sirens by out-playing them on his lyre?
Orpheus
Chiron had warned Jason that Orpheus would be necessary on the voyage.
Q 08Which Argonaut still heard the sirens and leapt overboard, only to be rescued by Aphrodite?
Butes
Butes, son of Teleon, alone leapt overboard at the sirens' song; Aphrodite snatched him up and set him at Lilybaeum in Sicily, where he fathered Eryx.
Q 09The sirens are most often named as daughters of which river god?
Achelous
Achelous, the great river god of Aetolia, is their usual father; their mother is variously given as Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope, or Sterope of Calydon.
Q 10Per Ovid, the sirens were companions of which goddess, and gained wings to search for her when she was abducted?
Persephone
In Ovid's Metamorphoses the sirens, Persephone's playmates at her flower-gathering, asked the gods for wings so they could search the seas for her after Hades carried her off.
Q 11The sirens lost a singing contest to which group of goddesses?
The Muses
The Muses beat the sirens in a singing contest, a tale told by Pausanias and Stephanus of Byzantium; Hera had goaded the sirens into issuing the challenge.
Q 12According to some post-Homeric authors, what happened to the sirens after Odysseus sailed safely past?
They flung themselves into the sea and died
Hyginus says it was fated the sirens would live only until someone heard their song and passed by, so after Odysseus escaped they flung themselves into the sea and died.
Q 13What does the name of the siren Parthenope, whose body washed ashore at Naples, mean?
Maiden-voiced
Q 21The first written description of a siren as a fish-tailed "mermaid" is in which 8th-century work?
Liber Monstrorum
The Liber Monstrorum, an Anglo-Latin catalogue of marvels, calls sirens 'sea-girls' with a maiden's body down to the navel and scaly fishes' tails below.
Q 22Medieval bestiaries gave the vain siren which two accessories, now emblematic of mermaids across Europe?
A comb and a mirror
Bestiary artists gave the vain siren a comb and a mirror, emblems of Luxuria that passed to the mermaid and survive in heraldry and pub signs across Europe.
Q 23Isidore of Seville, in his Etymologiae, rationalised the sirens as what?
Prostitutes who ruined travellers
Parthenope means 'maiden-voiced', from parthenos (maiden) and ops (voice); Cumaean settlers named their new city after her when her body washed ashore on the bay.
Q 14On which small Naples island, site of Castel dell'Ovo, did the siren Parthenope wash ashore?
Megaride
Megaride is the islet, now joined to the shore, on which Castel dell'Ovo stands; legend says Parthenope's body was carried there and the settlers buried her in their new city.
Q 15In a later Parthenope legend, which volcano did Jupiter turn a lovesick centaur into?
Vesuvius
In Neapolitan legend the centaur Vesuvio fell in love with the siren Parthenope; Jupiter turned him into Mount Vesuvius, whose eruptions are said to be his frustrated rage.
Q 16Which Roman poet wrote in the Georgics that he had been nurtured by "sweet Parthenope"?
Virgil
Virgil ends the Georgics saying 'sweet Parthenope' nurtured him while he wrote; Parthenope stood for Naples, where the poet lived and where his tomb is shown.
Q 17The Sirenusas, islands off the Amalfi Coast said to be the sirens' home, are also known by what name?
Li Galli
Li Galli, Neapolitan for 'the cocks', recalls the bird-bodied sirens; the three islets off Positano were later owned by the dancers Léonide Massine and Rudolf Nureyev.
Q 18Which island did Hesiod and Apollonius of Rhodes name as the sirens' home?
Anthemoessa
Anthemoessa, 'the flowery one', is the sirens' island in Hesiod's Catalogue of Women and in Apollonius's Argonautica; later writers placed the sirens off the Campanian coast near Capri.
Q 19Roman poets placed the sirens on small islands known by what Latin name?
Sirenum Scopuli
Sirenum Scopuli, 'the sirens' crags', is the Latin poets' name for the sirens' islets; the Aeneid (5.864) sails Aeneas past them, 'heaped with the bones of many men'.
Q 20The male siren, once shown in Greek art alongside female ones, disappeared around which century?
The 400s BC
Archaic Greek art showed bearded male sirens beside female ones; the male type vanished in the 400s BC, the fifth century BC, leaving only the female form.
Isidore wrote that sirens were really prostitutes who ruined travellers, leading them into poverty; their wings and claws were invented, he said, because Love both flies and wounds.
Q 24In Isaiah 13:22, Jerome used the Latin for sirens to translate a Hebrew word meaning what?
Jackals
Jerome's Vulgate renders the Hebrew tannim, jackals, as 'sirenae' in Isaiah 13:22, picturing them howling among the ruined palaces of Babylon.
Q 25In which canticle of the Divine Comedy does Dante dream of a siren who claims to have diverted Ulysses?
Purgatorio
In Purgatorio XIX Dante dreams of a stammering woman who becomes a 'sweet siren' and boasts of turning Ulysses from his course, a boast Homer's account never supports.
Q 26Which Renaissance polymath's notebooks say the siren lulls mariners to sleep, then kills them?
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci's notebook bestiary says the siren sings so sweetly that she lulls mariners to sleep, then climbs aboard and kills them as they sleep.
Q 27Which 17th-century Jesuit scholar argued Noah must have built compartments for sirens on the Ark?
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher, in his 1675 Arca Noë, reasoned that since sirens were real creatures, Noah must have built compartments to house them aboard the Ark.
Q 28In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, which legendary founder of Britain nearly capsizes at the Pillars of Hercules?
Brutus of Troy
Brutus of Troy, great-grandson of Aeneas, meets the sirens beyond the Pillars of Hercules in Geoffrey's Historia; his ships barely escape into the Tyrrhenian Sea, where he finds Corineus.
Q 29Which Roman naturalist dismissed sirens as fable while noting a claim they lived in India?
Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder, in Natural History Book 10, refused to credit sirens but recorded Dinon, father of the writer Clearchus, claiming they lived in India.
Q 30Which city's national archaeological museum holds the bird-footed terracotta Siren of Canosa?
Madrid
The Siren of Canosa, a bird-footed terracotta of about 300 BC from Apulia, is in Madrid's National Archaeological Museum; she was a grave figure guiding the dead to the afterlife.