The Penguin Book of Mermaids

by The Penguin Book of Mermaids (retail) (epub)

  Witnessing this sight, horrible as the maw of death, Madhusūdana thought to himself, “This must be the dwelling place of the evil-souled Kāliya, whose weapon is poison, that wicked serpent who abandoned the ocean when I defeated him there once before. Now the entire Yamunā is polluted by him, all the way to the sea, so that neither cows nor men suffering from thirst are able to use it. I must tame this king of snakes so that the inhabitants of Vraja can move around happily, without fear. I have descended into the world for this purpose, to pacify those hard-souled ones whose domain is evil. Let me now climb this broad-branched kadamba tree nearby and fall into the pool of this snake who feeds on the wind!” So thinking, and tightly tucking up his garment, Kṛṣṇa dived at once into the pool of the serpent king.

  So roiled up by the force of Kṛṣṇa’s fall was the vast pool that it flooded even huge trees growing far away. They burst at once into flame, smitten by the wind that carried water burning with that snake’s evil fiery poison; and that holocaust filled all of space.

  Then, in the serpent’s pool, Kṛṣṇa slapped his arm defiantly. Hearing the sound, the serpent king rapidly approached, his eyes coppery-red with rage. He was surrounded by other venomous wind-feeding snakes with mouths full of fiery poison, accompanied by their snake wives by the hundreds adorned with fetching necklaces, who were beautiful with jangling bracelets that trembled when their bodies moved.

  Then the snakes encircled Kṛṣṇa, making fetters of their coils, and bit him with their poison-filled mouths. When the cowherds saw that he had fallen into the pool and was being crushed by the serpents’ coils, they fled to Vraja. Wholly overcome with grief, they cried aloud, “Kṛṣṇa, distracted, has gone and fallen into Kāliya’s pool where he is being eaten alive by the snake king! Come and see him!”

  The cowherds and their wives, thunderstruck at these words, hurried immediately to the pool, with Yaśodā ahead of them. “Oh oh, where is he?” cried the agitated crowd of cowherd women as they hastened, confused and stumbling, along with Yaśodā. The cowherds Nanda and Rāma, of wondrous valor, also sped to the Yamunā determined to see Kṛṣṇa. There they saw him at the mercy of the serpent king, rendered powerless, wrapped in the coils of the snake. Staring at the face of his son, the cowherd Nanda was immobilized, excellent seer, and so was the lady Yaśodā. The other cowherds, too, disheartened with grief, looked on weeping while, stammering with fear, they beseeched Keśava with love. . . .

  When Kṛṣṇa was called to mind by the cowherds, the petals of his lips blossomed into a smile, and he split open that snake, freeing his own body from the coils. Using his two hands to bend over the middle head of that serpent with curving hoods, the wide-striding Kṛṣṇa mounted that head and began to dance on it. The serpent’s hood expanded with his life’s breath as it was pounded by Kṛṣṇa’s feet. Wherever the snake’s head swelled up, Kṛṣṇa trod it down again. Squeezed in this manner by Kṛṣṇa, the snake fainted away with a quiver, vomiting blood because of the blows of Kṛṣṇa’s staff.

  When his wives saw the serpent king with his neck and head arched over the blood streaming from his mouth, they went to Madhusūdana and said piteously, “Overlord of the gods, you are known to be omniscient, without equal, the ineffable light supernal of which the supreme lord is but a portion. You are he whom the gods themselves are not able to praise. How then can I, a mere woman, describe you? . . . Since silly women and miserable creatures are to be pitied by the virtuous, please forgive this wretched creature, you who are eminent among the forgiving! You are the support of the whole world; this is but a feeble snake. Crushed by your foot, he will soon die! How can this weak, lowly snake compare with you, the refuge of all beings? Both hate and love are within the province of the superior, O imperishable one. Therefore be gracious to this snake who is sinking fast, O master of the world. Our husband is dying! O lord of creation, grant us his life as alms!” . . .

  [Then Kāliya himself begged for mercy:] “I am not capable of honoring nor of praising you, overlord of the gods, but please take pity on me, O god whose sole thought is compassion! The race of snakes into which I was born is a cruel one; this is its proper nature. But I am not at fault in this matter, Acyuta, for it is you who pour forth and absorb the whole world; classes, forms and natures have all been assigned by you, the creator. . . . Now I am powerless, having lost my poison. You have subdued me, Acyuta; now spare my life! Tell me what to do!”

  “Leave the waters of the Yamunā, snake, and return to the ocean, along with your children and your retinue. And in the sea, O serpent, when Garuḍa, enemy of snakes, sees my footprints on your head, he will not harm you.” So speaking, lord Hari released the serpent king, who bowed to Kṛṣṇa and returned to the ocean of milk.

  In the sight of all creatures, Kāliya abandoned his pool, along with his dependents, his children and all his wives. When the snake had gone, the cowherds embraced Kṛṣṇa like one returned from the dead and lovingly drenched his head with tears. Other happy cowherds, with minds amazed, sang praises to Kṛṣṇa, who is unwearied by action, when they saw the river water safe. Hymned by the cowherd women and praised by the cowherd men for the fine deed he had done, Kṛṣṇa returned to Vraja.

  Odysseus and the Sirens1

  Nowadays Sirens and mermaids are both symbols of dangerous femininity, but they emerged from different waters and cultures. Sirens, as their visual representations on ancient Greek vases and funerary monuments show us, had human heads, wings, and chicken feet or the talons of birds of prey. But as they became conflated with the mermaids of northern European folklore, sirens began to be represented as part flying fish and part human female.2 It is the power of their song and music—rather than their appearance—that characterizes them across time. This means that the Sirens’ hybrid bodies morphed into human-piscine shapes based on the power that, in stories, Sirens share with mermaids.3 Like mermaids, Sirens seduce: lead astray, divert, lead elsewhere, persuade to desert one’s allegiance, corrupt. But while the sexual connotation of seduction is now prevalent, there was no such connotation in the Latin seducere or in English before the 1550s. Thus, the lure and knowledge the Sirens held in antiquity had to do with life and death, or knowing the future beyond human ability—not so much with sexuality.

  This episode of Homer’s Odyssey captures the power of Sirens in classic mythology. A twenty-four-book epic poem probably composed in the eighth century BC, The Odyssey follows Odysseus and his crew as they make their way home to Ithaca from the Trojan War, encountering storms, monstrous beings, and tests of all sorts along the way. The poem has been canonized for its artful narrative and poetic form as well as its reflections on heroism, hospitality, and the aspirations and limits of human nature.

  Odysseus and his men encounter the Sirens in book 12. He is ready for them thanks to the goddess Circe, who has warned him and suggested how he and his men can pass them unscathed. As perpetuated in future traditions, the Sirens’ song is their deathly lure. While the crewmen—with wax stuffed in their ears—do the physical work of rowing to get the ship past the Sirens’ shore, Odysseus is tightly roped to the ship’s mast. Thus immobilized, he alone is privileged to hear, in Alexander Pope’s translation, the “celestial music” of the “sweet deluders.”

  Odysseus is subject to erotic temptation more than once in the course of his homecoming, but the Sirens’ lure is of a different kind. Homer’s Sirens sing a song that promises knowledge—a wisdom that bridges worlds—instead of pleasure. While their appearance differs from that of the mermaids with whom they are later conflated, the Sirens’ music is still a portal that draws humans into a different dimension. This tempting song would perhaps have had even further intensity in oral performances of the Homeric poem.

  The friendly goddess stretch’d the swelling sails;

  We drop our oars; at ease the pilot guides;

  The vessel light along the level glides.

  When,
rising sad and slow, with pensive look,

  Thus to the melancholy train I spoke:

  “‘O friends, oh ever partners of my woes,

  Attend while I what Heaven foredooms disclose.

  Hear all! Fate hangs o’er all; on you it lies

  To live or perish! to be safe, be wise!

  “‘In flowery meads the sportive Sirens play,

  Touch the soft lyre, and tune the vocal lay;

  Me, me alone, with fetters firmly bound,

  The gods allow to hear the dangerous sound.

  Hear and obey; if freedom I demand,

  Be every fetter strain’d, be added band to band.’

  “While yet I speak the winged galley flies,

  And lo! the Siren shores like mists arise.

  Sunk were at once the winds; the air above,

  And waves below, at once forgot to move;

  Some demon calm’d the air and smooth’d the deep,

  Hush’d the loud winds, and charm’d the waves to sleep.

  Now every sail we furl, each oar we ply;

  Lash’d by the stroke, the frothy waters fly.

  The ductile wax with busy hands I mould,

  And cleft in fragments, and the fragments roll’d;

  The aerial region now grew warm with day,

  The wax dissolved beneath the burning ray;

  Then every ear I barr’d against the strain,

  And from access of frenzy lock’d the brain.

  Now round the masts my mates the fetters roll’d,

  And bound me limb by limb with fold on fold.

  Then bending to the stroke, the active train

  Plunge all at once their oars, and cleave the main.

  “While to the shore the rapid vessel flies,

  Our swift approach the Siren choir descries;

  Celestial music warbles from their tongue,

  And thus the sweet deluders tune the song:

  “‘Oh stay, O pride of Greece! Ulysses, stay!

  Oh cease thy course, and listen to our lay!

  Blest is the man ordain’d our voice to hear,

  The song instructs the soul, and charms the ear.

  Approach! thy soul shall into raptures rise!

  Approach! and learn new wisdom from the wise!

  We know whate’er the kings of mighty name

  Achieved at Ilion in the field of fame;

  Whate’er beneath the sun’s bright journey lies.

  Oh stay, and learn new wisdom from the wise!’

  “Thus the sweet charmers warbled o’er the main;

  My soul takes wing to meet the heavenly strain;

  I give the sign, and struggle to be free;

  Swift row my mates, and shoot along the sea;

  New chains they add, and rapid urge the way,

  Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay;

  Then scudding swiftly from the dangerous ground,

  The deafen’d ear unlock’d, the chains unbound.”

  The Tuna (Eel) of Lake Vaihiria1, 2

  The male-centric view of the female water spirit as a dangerous “other” is reversed in this mythological tale. A high-ranking young woman is promised to a king who, unbeknownst to her, is an eel. (“Tuna”—or its linguistic cognates, like “duna,” “funa,” and “kuna”—denotes freshwater eel in several Pacific Island languages, including Samoan, Tongan, Māori, Niuean, Tahitian, Tuamotuan, Cook Islander, Rapa, Fijian, Rotuman, and Hawaiian.) She is repulsed by him, but he aggressively pursues her. She escapes with the help of Māui, a pan-Polynesian cultural hero who kills the eel and gives her its head, telling her it will provide her with valuable resources. In the end, it grows into a coconut tree.

  A supernatural eel who may sometimes appear as a man figures prominently in a number of Polynesian tales about the origin of the coconut, an important plant for Pacific Islanders, who use every part of it: the tree’s trunk is carved into drums; its long, wide fronds are used to cover roofs and walls, and to make mats, bowls, hats, and brooms; the hard shell of its large, round seeds is used to make bowls, cups, spoons, combs, and fishhooks; the fibrous husk is used to make sennit; and the inner part of the seed provides coconut meat and water.

  In this Tahitian variant of the coconut’s origin story, the female protagonist is named Hina.3 Elsewhere, she is known as Sina (Sāmoa), Heina (Tonga), Hine (Aotearoa), and Ina (Cook Islands). Hina-Sina-Heina-Hine-Ina is usually of high rank, and sometimes semidivine. Depending on the version, she may either fall in love with the eel or find him repulsive. With their long, sinuous bodies, eels are phallic symbols. Indeed, in a Samoan variant, Sina is scorned because the eel takes her virginity as she swims in the pool where it makes his home.

  There was once a beautiful young princess of Papeuriri, Tahiti, of the highest lineage, whose celestial patrons, the sun and moon, had named her Hina (Gray). When this young girl had reached the stature of womanhood and was becoming much admired for her beauty—flashes of light emanating from her person restricted her to a very select circle—the sun and moon espoused her to the king of Lake Vaihiria, before she had any personal acquaintance with him or her even seen him. The king’s name was Fa’arava’ai-anu (Cause-to-fish-in-the-cold), and as her parents agreed to the marriage Hina felt no doubt of the suitableness of the match and entered happily into all the preparations for her wedding. Hina chose for her maids of honor, two childhood companions, named Varua (Spirit) and Te-roro (Brain), and when at last the marriage day arrived they were attractively dressed in white tapa gracefully wound around their persons, with garlands of maire fern interwoven with red fara strobile tips and snow-white tiare, and in their flowing raven hair they entwined similar wreaths. The bride also wore, in token of her rank, a necklet and girdle of rich red and yellow ’ura (parrakeet feathers).

  At length the bridal party set out to meet the bridegroom, accompanied with the measured beat of the drum and the soft notes of the bamboo flute and other primitive musical instruments, and they had gone half way up the valley to Lake Vaihiria, when, lo, the bridegroom was seen descending the declivity to meet them. And there in the distance Hina saw to her great horror, an immense eel, as great and long as the trunk of a tall coconut tree; this was Fa’arava’ai-anu, king of Lake Vaihiria, the intended bridegroom for the beautiful Hina!

  Terror-stricken, she turned to her parents and exclaimed: “It is indeed this, O my parents? Do you wish me to be wedded to a monster and not a person? O how cruel of you! And now I shall seek my own salvation!” And she fled out of the valley to her home.

  On arriving there, the people were surprised to see her and enquired what had happened. On knowing her grief and disappointment, sorrow and sympathy filled their hearts towards her.

  “And now,” she said, “farewell. I must seek my salvation quickly away from here. If all be well, I shall return again; but meanwhile, my dear friends, I entrust all my treasures to your care. If I live, I shall return to my own district, to be with you, my dearly loved ones.”

  Willing hands quickly prepared a swift canoe, and just as the moon was rising in its full glory, Hina, with trusted retainers, set off for Vairao, Taiarapu, to seek the aid and protection of the great Mâ-û-i who had noosed and controlled the sun, and there they arrived just before daybreak.

  On entering his cave, Hina found Mâ-û-i was out, but she was kindly received by his wife. Shortly afterwards he came in and enquired of his wife what caused the brilliant flashes of light in their dark abode, and she replied:

  “‘This is Hina of the ’ura girdle, Hina of lightning flashes in the east, Hina, child of the sun and moon; her wind is the northeast trade wind.”

  Then Mâ-û-i welcomed Hina, and kindly addressed her saying, “O Hina, beloved daughter of Mataiea, what is your errand, my Princess?”
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  “O Mâ-û-i,” she exclaimed, “save me from the hideous monster, the king of Vaihiria, who will be coming here to claim me as his wife! Have pity on me, behold now outside, and what is the wind? It is possessed, darkness is overshadowing the land, and the sea is foaming so that the ocean beyond cannot be seen?” And then, while Hina told her sad story, they saw the eel king breaking an entrance passage in the reef.

  Mâ-û-i was horrified, and he hastened to place his two stone gods upon the cliffs and to sharpen his axe and make ready his fishhook for action. Then, as the eel was approaching the shore, Mâ-û-i placed some tempting bait upon the fishhook and secured it with Hina’s hair.

  As soon as the eel saw him, he roared out in a thundering voice, “Mâ-û-i, deliver me my bride!”

  And Mâ-û-i cast his fishhook into the sea, saying, “This is I, Mâ-û-i the brave! No king can escape me here in my heritage; he will become food for my images.”

  Then the eel, perceiving the food, opened wide his mouth and swallowed the fishhook and bait, and soon Mâ-û-i drew him up on to the shore. He chopped off his great head, which he wrapped in tapa, and presented it to Hina, saying:

  “Hold this, and put it not down an instant until you arrive home; then take and plant it in the center of your marae ground. This eel’s head contains for you great treasures; from it you will have material to build and complete your house, besides food to eat and water to drink. But remember my warning, that you lose not your valuable property by putting it down before you reach home. Then you will ever be remembered as Hina-vahine-e- anapa-te-uira-i-te-Hiti’a-o-te-ra (Hina-of-lightning-flashes-in- the-east).”

  So Hina took the great bundle, which became light by magic, and sending on her canoe along the coast, she and an attendant maid preferred walking a few miles. So they went on their way rejoicing, and arrived at a place called Pani (To-close), where they saw a nice deep stream of water, at which they stopped to drink. In doing this, Hina thoughtlessly put down her bundle. Soon the two girls made up their minds to take a bath. So in they plunged and dove first upwards in the stream and then downwards, when Hina all at once remembered her eel’s head and left the water quickly to go and take it up again. But lo, as she approached it, she found the tapa removed, and there the head stood erect, rooted to the ground and sprouting! It had become a young coconut tree. Then Hina saw and understood why Mâ-û-i had told her only to put it down at her own marae, and she wept bitterly.