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Notes on the Orpheus Myth
by Thad Curtz

We're showing Jean Cocteau's Orphee on Friday. In case you don't know the classical myth, here's a brief version of it, summarized from Robert Graves' The Greek Myths.

Orpheus ... was the most famous poet and musician who ever lived. Apollo presented him with a lyre, and the Muses taught him its use, so that he not only enchanted wild beasts, but made the trees and rocks move from their places to follow the sound of his music. At Zone in Thrace, a number of ancient mountain oaks are still standing in the pattern of one of his dances, just as he left them.

... Orpheus joined the Argonauts and sailed to Colchis with them in pursuit of the Golden Fleece, his music helping them to overcome many difficulties - and, on his return, married Eurydice...

One day... Eurydice met Aristeaus, who tried to rape her. She trod on a serpent as she fled, and died of its bite; but Orpheus boldly descended into the Underworld, hoping to fetch her back. ... on his arrival, he not only charmed the ferryman Charon, the dog Cerberus and the three Judges of the Dead with his plaintive music, but temporarily suspended the tortures of the damned. He so far soothed the savage heart of Hades, the Kind of the Underworld, that he won leave to restore Eurydice to the upper world. Hades made a single condition: that Orpheus might not look behind him until she was safely back under the light of the sun. Eurydice followed Orpheus up through the dark passage, guided by the sounds of his lyre, and it was only when he reached the sunlight again that he turned to see whether she were still behind him, and thus lost her forever.

When Dionysus (the god of wine, inspiration, and Greek tragedy) came to Thrace, Orpheus neglected to honor him, but taught other sacred mysteries... preaching that Helios (the Sun) whom he named Apollo, was the greatest of the gods. In vexation, Dionysus set the Maenads on him. (The Maenads were women who were possessed by Dionysus and left their families and homes to roam the woods, chanting the god's praises as well as running down wild animals, ripping them up and devouring them.) First waiting until their husbands had entered the temple of Apollo, where Orpheus served as priest, the Maenads seized the weapons stacked outside, burst in, murdered their husbands, and tore Orpheus limb from limb. His head they threw into the river Hebrus, but it floated, still singing, down to the sea...