THE MARMAID

The mermaid is facing the sea. With her beauty and her calls she attracts sailors. Fascinated by her song, they do not notice the cliff that will cause them to sink. They head towards it at full speed, gripped by the longing for that fantastic being, who promises them infinite joys and enjoyments.
Perhaps the mermaid embodies the myth of the eternal struggle that man makes to balance his desire, his eros, with his reason, trying to find a balance between his two natures, instinctive and rational.
The strong, psychically mature and satisfied human being says: know and experience instincts and passions, but do not become a slave to them. Use them and moderate them with the use of reasoning, only in this way will you enter into communion with life and the world.
Ulysses, an uncommon man, wanted to know, to understand and without giving up the mind that suggested he be tied up, he wanted to try to abandon himself, to give himself partially to instinct and to the very strong call of desire. Of course, to do this, as a wise and prudent man as the myth tells us, he did not fail to anchor himself to the mainmast of his deepest self, nor to protect those who, his companions, were not tied, by plugging their ears with wax.
Even in this myth, the female figure of the siren was chosen to warn man not to give in to instinct, to inhibit his audacity and thirst for knowledge.
But this siren, the one in the painting, seems very unlikely as a man-eater. The rocks at the bottom are so close to the shore that, even if shipwrecked, the sailors could find on land the warmth of a fire, the refreshment and comfort of maternal female arms. S.B.