Metamorphosis and the Sirena

Abstract

Thus Bartolomé de las Casas, conveying the experiences of Cristóbal Colón on his first voyage to what he thought were the Indies. The translation is necessarily ambiguous; “alguna manera” can signal a negative or a qualified positive, and the difference is only knowable in live speech. As such, this passage gestures toward metamorphosis through its necessary relation to performance, as well as in its content. Colón’s “serenas” looked somewhat human; they looked not at all human. They apparently did not sing—which, if they were manatees, as commentators have suggested given the Caribbean setting, is not surprising. Or perhaps they did sing, and were not heard; history suggests that Colón was not a very good listener. We are talking about metamorphosis here, and instability is the point rather than taxonomical certitude. I am not the first musicologist to love the Sirens, and, the high cost notwithstanding, I suspect I will not be the last. They are peerless icons of the lability of signification, and for its rich untrustworthiness when it becomes entangled with matters of identity. 09 de enero de 1493 January 9th, 1493 El día pasado, cuando el Almirante iba al Río de Oro,dijo que vido tres serenas que salieron bien alto de la mar, pero que no