Eurydice and Orpheus

Eurydice and Orpheus were young and in love. So deep was their love that they were practically inseparable. So dependent was their love that each felt they could not live without the other. The joyful couple spent their time frolicking through the countryside. One day Eurydice was gaily running through a meadow with Orpheus when she was bitten by a serpent. The poison of the sting killed Eurydice and she descended to the Underworld immediately.

Orpheus was son of the great Olympian god Apollo, the god of music, and Orpheus was likewise blessed with musical talents. Orpheus was so sad about the loss of his love that he composed music to express the terrible emptiness which pervaded his every breath and movement. He was so desperate and found so little else meaningful, that he decided to address Hades, the god of the Underworld.

Many approached Hades to beg for loved ones back and as many times were refused. But Orpheus' love songs for his Eurydice were so sweet and so moving that it softened even the steel-hearted Hades. He gave Orpheus permission to bring Eurydice back to the surface of the Earth to enjoy the light of day. There was only one condition--Orpheus was not to look back as he ascended. He was to trust that Eurydice was immediately behind him.

It was a long way back up and and just before the pair reached the world of the living, Orpheus looked back, and Eurydice slipped back into the Underworld because he did not trust that she was there.

Orpheus was inconsolable at this second loss of his wife. He spurned the company of women and kept apart from ordinary human activities.

One day, a group of Ciconian Maenads, female devotees of Dionysus, came upon Orpheus as he sat singing beneath a tree. They attacked him, throwing rocks, branches, and anything else that came to hand. However, Orpheus' music was so beautiful that it charmed even inanimate objects, and the missiles refused to strike him. Finally, the Maenads' attacked him with their own hands, and tore him to pieces. Orpheus' head floated down the river, still singing, and came to rest on the isle of Lesbos.

When you hear music which mourns lost love, it is Orpheus' spirit who guides the hand of the musicians who play it.

Excerpted from: © MCMXCV - MMV Encyclopedia Mythica. All rights reserved.