Topic Page: Orpheus (Greek mythology) Definition: Orpheus from Philip's Encyclopedia In Greek mythology, the son of Calliope by Apollo, and the finest of all poets and musicians. Orpheus married Eurydice, who died after being bitten by a snake. He descended into the Underworld to rescue her and was allowed to regain her if he did not look back at her until they emerged into the sunlight. He could not resist, and Eurydice vanished forever. Summary Article: Orpheus from Dictionary of Classical Mythology The supreme singer and musician of Greek myth, so skilled that he entranced the whole of nature with his song, taming savage beasts and moving even rocks and trees. As Shakespeare would put it (Two Gentlemen of Verona III. ii. 78 81): Image from: Orpheus in National Gallery Collection For Orpheus lute was strung with poets sinews, Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands. Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, Orpheus accompanied the ARGONAUTS on their expedition to fetch the Golden Fleece, lulling the waves and soothing the crew with his music. He even saved their lives by drowning out the SIRENS singing with his own, surpassing theirs in sweetness. Orpheus was the son of one of the MUSES, usually said to be Calliope, by either APOLLO or the Thracian Oeagrus. His best-known myth is his descent to the Underworld to fetch back his wife Eurydice. Our first reference to the story is in Euripides Alcestis (357 62) of 438 BC, though it is only with Virgil and Ovid that the story is told in detail. Soon after Orpheus married the nymph Eurydice, she died of a snake bite, perhaps while she was pursued by the amorous ARISTAEUS. Orpheus so mourned her death that he determined to bring her back from Hades. He passed through the entrance to the Underworld at Taenarum in Laconia and courageously made the long and lonely descent. He sang, and CHARON, the ferryman, and the watchdog CERBERUS were so charmed by his music that they allowed him to enter. When he reached the abode of HADES and PERSEPHONE, he sang again, pleading for his wife who had been cut off before her prime, and with his song he entranced the entire world of the dead. All the shades listened and wept. TANTALUS (1) forgot his hunger and thirst, and the wheel of IXION stayed motionless. The vultures stopped tearing at TITYUS liver. The daughters of DANAUS held their pitchers still, and SISYPHUS sat idle on his great stone. Then, for the first time, the cheeks of the FURIES were wet with tears. Most important of all, Hades and Persephone could not bear to refuse Orpheus pleas and said that he might take his Eurydice back to earth. Their only conditions were that he must lead the way on the journey out, and that he must not look back at her until they had both regained the light of the sun.
It may be that in the early, lost version of the myth, Orpheus succeeded in winning back his wife. But this is not so in the familiar, later version. The two of them set off, Eurydice following her husband, and Orpheus was just reaching the end of the long ascent when, eager to see his wife and afraid that her strength might be failing, he fatally looked back. At once she slipped away into the darkness, dying for the second time. Fig. 124. Thracian men listen entranced to the music of Orpheus.
Fig. 125. The death of Orpheus at the hands of Thracian women. Orpheus tried to follow her, but this time his entrance to Hades was sternly refused. Eventually he returned to Thrace and wandered through the land, mourning inconsolably and singing of his loss. Finally he was torn to pieces by Thracian women (or MAENADS). Various motives are given for their bloodthirsty act. Either they resented Orpheus for his fidelity to the memory of Eurydice, or for turning to the love of boys in his grief. Or they were driven to it by APHRODITE, resentful because of his mother Calliope's judgement in the dispute with Persephone over ADONIS; or by DIONYSUS, angry because Orpheus had failed to worship him, preferring HELIOS, the Sun-god. Or each of the women wanted Orpheus for herself, and they tore him apart in the resultant squabble. Whatever their motive, it resulted in a ghastly death for the world's finest singer. The birds and the beasts, even the rocks and the trees, wept for Orpheus. His limbs were scattered in different places, and his head was thrown into the river Hebrus where it floated, still singing, down the stream and into the sea. It was carried southwards to Lesbos and buried there by the people of the island, who were thereafter rewarded with an especial skill in music and poetry (and in particular the great poets Sappho, Alcaeus and Arion). The Muses gathered up the scattered fragments of his body and buried them in Pieria, where the nightingale was said to sing more sweetly over his grave than anywhere else in Greece. His lyre was set by Zeus among the stars as the constellation Lyra. His shade passed once more to Hades, where he was reunited with his Eurydice, able now to walk with her and gaze his fill, with no fear of losing her by an incautious glance. Orpheus was said to be the founder of the mystic cult of Orphism (see ZAGREUS) and was credited with the authorship of many poems and mystical books. He appears occasionally in ancient art (Figs 124 and 125); and Pausanias (9.30.4) tells us that there was a famous statue of him on Mount HELICON, home of the Muses, where he was surrounded by animals of stone and bronze, all entranced by his singing. His legend has been of tremendous inspiration in the postclassical arts, particularly to painters, dramatists and composers. Many operas have been based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, the most famous being Monteverdi's Orpheus (1607), Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice (1762, ending with Eurydice happily
restored to Orpheus through the grace of the gods), and Offenbach's comic opera Orpheus in the Underworld (1858). [Simonides, fr. 567; Pindar, Pythian 4.176 7; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1629 30; Euripides, Bacchae 560 4, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1211 14, Rhesus 943 4; Plato, Symposium 179b-d. ; Apollonius, Argonautica; Apollodorus 1.3.2, 1.9.16, 1.9.25, 2.4.9; Diodorus Siculus 1.23, 1.96, 3.65, 4.25; Pausanias 9.17.7, 9.27.2, 9.30.4 12, 10.7.2, 10.30.6 7; Virgil, Georgics 4.453 503, Culex 268 95; Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.1 85, 11.1 84. Linforth, I. M., The Arts of Orpheus (1941);. Segal, C., The Myth of the Poet (1989)..] Text Jennifer R. March 2014, illustrations Neil Barrett 2014
APA Orpheus. (2014). In J. R. March, Dictionary of classical mythology (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books. Retrieved from Chicago "Orpheus." In Dictionary of Classical Mythology, by Jennifer R. March. 2nd ed. Oxbow Books, 2014. Harvard Orpheus. (2014). In J.R. March, Dictionary of classical mythology. (2nd ed.). [Online]. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Available from: [Accessed 25 March 2018]. MLA "Orpheus." Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Jennifer R. March, Oxbow Books, 2nd edition, 2014. Credo Reference,. Accessed 25 Mar 2018.