Orpheus loved & lost — what’s the point of that?
In Greek mythology, Orpheus braved the depths of Hell itself to win back his one true love.
But despite all his efforts and all his charms, it still ended in tragedy.
For centuries the heartbreaking tale of Orpheus and Eurydice has inspired songs, art, films, operas and ballet, plus the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown.
But what was their story trying to tell us?
Total charmer
The origin of classical Greek mythology is difficult to pinpoint. These dynamic tales of gods and monsters were so embellished by successive generations that it’s hard to find where it all started.
Orpheus makes an early appearance in stories about Jason’s voyages on the Argo written by 3rd Century Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes. But two Roman poets, Virgil and Ovid, gave us the complete Orpheus story in the Georgics: Book IV (around 29 BC) and Metamorphoses (8 AD) respectively. Dig them out if you get a chance, they truly are beautiful. In the meantime here’s a much less poetic summary:
Orpheus’ father was a Thracian prince and his mother was a Muse (a daughter of top god Zeus and Mnemosyne aka Memory). This lofty heritage bestowed incredible musical skill upon Orpheus, who was regarded as the greatest of all poets and musicians. He was able to charm anyone or anything with his lyre — even wild animals, trees and rocks were said to be mesmerised by the songs and music of Orpheus.
His musical skill came in useful when he joined Jason on the Argo. As the bewitching Sirens tried to lure the crew to their deaths, Orpheus played a song that was louder and more powerful than theirs. It roused his shipmates from their trance and enabled the Argo to sail on past its rocky fate.
Nest of vipers
But Orpheus is even better known for his marriage than his music. While his charms were irresistible, the only maiden he loved was Eurydice.
The two were married and very much in love — but unfortunately the story doesn’t end there. As with many Greek myths, the tranquility of mortal life was disrupted by a horny god.
Soon after her wedding, Eurydice is pursued by Aristaeus, the god of herdsmen and hunters who is often depicted as a handsome young man. Rejecting the advances of this omnipotent predator, Eurydice runs away and falls into a literal nest of vipers. One of the snakes bites Eurydice on the heel and she dies instantly.
Discovering her body, the distraught Orpheus was said to have played his grief into a song so heartfelt that even the gods wept upon hearing it. (Maybe they were also feeling a little responsible for the fatal lechery of Aristaeus.) The gods suggested that Orpheus should try to do what no man had done before: to bargain with Hades, the god of the dead, for the life of Eurydice.
A deal is struck
So Orpheus heads into the Underworld with his trusty lyre under his arm, risking everything to be reunited with his love. He uses the power of his songs to charm his way past all the guardians of Hell, including the many-headed dog Cerberus, for an audience with Hades. As translated by Edith Hamilton, Orpheus tells Hades:
I seek one who came to you too soon.
The bud was plucked before the flower bloomed.
I tried to bear my loss. I could not bear it.
Moved by his plea and charmed by his music, Hades strikes a deal: Orpheus will be permitted to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld on condition that she follows directly behind him. Orpheus is forbidden to look back at her until they are both in the upper world. If he does, Eurydice will be lost forever.
Orpheus agrees and starts to make the long journey out of Hell. Eurydice follows behind him — but she is silent, so Orpheus is never truly certain that she is there.
As he finally steps out into daylight, Orpheus eagerly turns around to look at Eurydice. Tragically she had not yet left the Underworld. His deal with Hades broken, Orpheus can only watch helplessly as Eurydice disappears forever back into the darkness below. She says just one word to him: “Farewell.”
Rejection
As an epilogue, the grieving Orpheus rejects society and wanders Thrace playing only mournful songs on his lyre.
He is subsequently killed in a frenzied attack by a group of Maenads, female followers of the wine god Dionysus, who behead Orpheus and pull off his limbs.
Some stories say this is because the Maenads were crazed and tired of Orpheus’ mourning — however Ovid suggested a more disturbing reason for his death. After losing Eurydice, Orpheus was said to have rejected women completely. Ovid wrote:
Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection.
Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his affection to young boys and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering this side of manhood.
After Eurydice, Orpheus found sexual pleasure with young men — this was barely noteworthy in ancient Greece, where sexual relationships between older and younger men were not uncommon, known as ‘pederasty’. But the death of Orpheus was subsequently rewritten as a fatal judgement upon this.
German artist Albrecht Dürer’s 1494 drawing Death Of Orpheus shows a child barely older than a baby running away while Orpheus is beaten to death by women with sticks. A ribbon in the tree above them spells: “Orfeus der erst puseran” (“Orpheus the first pederast”) — reinforcing the toxic idea that homosexuality was somehow synonymous with paedophilia.
However Orpheus died, his head was said to be buried in Lesbos and his limbs placed in a tomb at the foot of Mount Olympus. Nightingales flying above his tomb were said to sing more sweetly there than anywhere else.
Some versions of the myth add an almost happy ending: Orpheus’ soul then returns to the Underworld, where he is reunited forever with Eurydice.
Inspired
The tragic romance of Orpheus and Eurydice has inspired hundreds of works of art, from the operas of Jacopo Perl (Eurydice, 1600) and Joseph Haydn (L’anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice, 1791) to the Franz Liszt poem (Orpheus, 1853) and the Igor Stravinsky ballet (Orpheus, 1947).
No doubt the status of Orpheus as a master poet, whose music had the power to charm man, beast and god, also helped other artists to identify with him.
Jean Cocteau directed a trilogy of films inspired by the myth, the best known being 1950’s dreamlike Orphee. He cast Jean Marais as an Orpheus of the Left Bank, led through a mirror into the Underworld by a mysterious princess (played by Maria Casares). As the film pulls you into its trance, this intellectual Orpheus becomes much more interested in the princess than his homely Eurydice.
In her 2010 folk opera Hadestown, Anais Mitchell transports the Orpheus story to an entirely different setting — a post apocalyptic United States in an era of deep depression.
In Mitchell’s version, Hades is a populist leader intent on enriching a wealthy minority while suppressing the desperate majority. Can you ever imagine such a situation? Orpheus and Eurydice play out their romance to a fiery blues soundtrack which earned Hadestown no fewer than eight Tonys, including Best Musical.
Over the years Orpheus has also charmed his way into many pop songs, by artists as diverse as The Herd, Marc Almond and Arcade Fire, who in 2013 released one track inspired by Eurydice (Awful Sound) and another by Orpheus (It’s Never Over). Andrew Bird’s 2012 song Orpheo Looks Back warns the listener against reflecting on the past, as it can make absence more painful and eventually “drive you mad”.
Nick Cave twists the Orpheus story into a deliciously dark satire on the destructive power of music. In his 2004 song The Lyre of Orpheus, Cave explains that Orpheus created his trademark lyre by accident. As he plays it to his sleeping wife Eurydice, her eyes “popped from their sockets” and she dies instantly. Orpheus is horrified but “in his heart he felt a bliss with which nothing could compete” — the joys of life as a musician. God soon sends him down to Hell where, reunited with Eurydice, Orpheus decides to quit music forever — after playing one last song.
Limits of humanity
Each of these artists interprets the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in a very different way. But which interpretation is correct? Ultimately: what is the point of loving someone you lose?
Unlike Aesop’s fables, Greek myths do not try to impart one single moral message.
Greek gods were the first to appear in human form. For all their power and potential, the gods share our human complexities and failings. It’s not unusual for a Greek god to royally screw things up, usually because Zeus spots a mortal he fancies so turns himself into a swan or bull to secretly seduce her.
As such, Greek myths present fantastic multifaceted stories for us to decipher in our own way. So there are probably as many interpretations of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as there are readers — but three themes seem prevalent:
Trust
Many interpret the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as a simple lesson in trust.
If Orpheus trusted that Eurydice was following behind him, as Hades had promised, maybe he wouldn’t have turned around so soon.
Some see this as an illustration of why we should put our faith in a greater power, whether that’s a god or some other authority.
However this interpretation is undermined by Plato. In his Symposium (385–370 BC) Plato writes that Orpheus was tricked by Hades, who never truly intended for Eurydice to leave Hell. Instead Hades permitted only a shadowy apparition of Eurydice to follow Orpheus through the Underworld. If Orpheus had put his trust in Hades, his faith would have been misplaced.
Perhaps the trust Orpheus lacked was a belief in himself, an interpretation supported by Hadestown. After all, here was a guy who had done what no-one else could: he entered hell and bargained with Hades. Surely he could believe in himself long enough to keep walking a little further, to reap the benefit from all his labours?
This very modern interpretation presents Orpheus as a mythological marathon runner, and again relies upon the shrewd Hades to keep his side of the deal.
So the ‘trust’ argument is a little shaky.
Head over heart
Another common interpretation of the story is a plea for rationality.
If Orpheus let his head rule over his heart, he wouldn’t have impulsively turned around too soon, losing Eurydice forever. She was just a few steps away from the upper world — couldn’t he have stayed calm just a little longer?
But Orpheus and Eurydice is a story of grand passion: passion strong enough to lead you through the depths of Hell to retrieve your true love.
Orpheus was revered as the greatest of all poets and musicians — yet somehow he’d kept his head while leading Eurydice on the long slow journey out of the Underworld. It would have required a supernatural act of self control for Orpheus to retain his calm once he believed they could finally be reunited. In the circumstances, I think we can forgive Orpheus for being overexcited.
Acceptance
For me, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a lesson in acceptance.
The sudden death of Eurydice was a tragedy before Orpheus ever entered the Underworld. But his refusal to accept the situation made it much much worse. As Orpheus told Hades: “I tried to bear my loss. I could not bear it.”
Hades gave Orpheus false hope of a reconciliation, leading to a second loss of Eurydice which truly was unbearable.
Orpheus’ long-delayed mourning was legendary. For the greatest of all poets, having his head and limbs pulled apart by Maenads was less tragic than having his heart broken.
If we want to impose a modern moral upon this ancient story, I’d say: accept your loss as best you can.
Just like you, I’ve had my heart broken once or twice. But after I was royally dumped I’m glad I pushed forward and didn’t try to deny the reality of my sad situation.
I wouldn’t go as far as Andrew Bird and advise against looking back — hey, we’re only human. But like Orpheus, we can look back as often as we want to: the person we loved will no longer be there.
The Orpheus and Eurydice story shows us that a determined person can do anything, even enter the depths of Hell. But if we’re to bear the loss that all of us will experience in our lives, acceptance and mourning are vital.
And none of this would have happened had Aristaeus kept his hands to himself.
Excerpt from Hadestown:
Eurydice:
Orpheus hold on
Hold on tight
It won’t be long
The darkest hour of the darkest night
Comes right before the dawn.[Orpheus turns]
Eurydice:
You’re early.Orpheus:
I missed you.
