Ulysses desperately wanted to hear the legendary songs, but he didn’t want to kill himself and his crew. So he hatched a plan. He knew that when he heard the music, he would be unable to resist steering toward the island’s rocks. The problem wasn’t the present rational Ulysses, but instead the future, illogical Ulysses – the person he’d become when the Sirens came within earshot. So Ulysses ordered his men to lash him securely to the mast of the ship. They filled their ears with beeswax so as not to hear the Sirens, and they rowed under strict orders to ignore any of his pleas and cries and
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