Boatmen and Siren Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1853 (circa) “A small boat is carrying a siren swiftly downstream; she has turned to look at the two men in the boat following her; the one on the right has grabbed his companion round the waist determined that he shall not follow her; the other, with arms outflung, is bent on reaching her” ( Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , I. 26.
<artist/> <location/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>The small drawing treats in a rather homely fashion one of DGR's preoccupying masculinist themes: the conflict epitomized in the Keatsian “belle dame sans merci” motif. The theme underlies the pervasive dualisms of DGR's work (Eve/Lilith; Soul's Beauty/Body's Beauty; and so forth). The drawing should be compared with both <xref doc="a.47p-1869.raw"> <title level="bk"> <hi rend="i">The Doom of the Sirens</hi> and <hi rend="i">The Orchard Pit</hi> .

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Written below the drawing are two lines mistranscribed from Jacopo da Lentino's poem “Membrando ciò che amore” (lines 31-32). DGR translated the canzone as “At the End of his Hope” , where the lines are rendered as: “The mariner forgets,/Voyaging in those straits”. The pertinence of the reference to the drawing is underscored if one recovers more of the verse: “I am broken, as a ship/ Perishing of the song/Sweet, sweet and long, the song the sirens know./ The mariner forgets,/ Voyaging in those straits,/ And dies assuredly.”

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , I. 26 (no. 63).

Manchester pen and ink drawing Boatmen and Siren DGR 1853 (circa) pen and brown ink 1