Pero Ulises, si se puede expresar así, no oyó su silencio. Pensó que ellas cantaban y que era él el que no podía escucharlas. Fugazmente, vio primero las curvas de sus cuellos, la respiración profunda, los ojos llenos de lágrimas, los labios entreabiertos, pero creía que todo era parte de la melodía que fluía sorda en torno de él. Pronto, sin embargo, todo esto comenzó a desaparecer gradualmente de su vista al tiempo que él fijaba su mirada en el horizonte; las sirenas se desvanecieron literalmente , y él no supo más de ellas justo en el preciso momento en el que ellas estaban más cerca de él.
But Ulysses, if one may so express it, did not hear their silence; he thought they were singing and that he alone did not hear them. For a fleeting moment he saw their throats rising and falling, their breasts lifting, their eyes filled with tears, their lips half-parted, but believed that these were accompaniments to the airs which died unheard around him. Soon, however, all this faded from his sight as he fixed his gaze on the distance, the Sirens literally vanished before his resolution, and at the very moment when they were nearest to him he knew of them no longer.