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Orpheus and Eurydice: summary. The lyrist Orpheus fell in love with the beautiful Eurydice, only for her to die shortly after; Orpheus made the journey into Hades, the Underworld, to try to bring his beloved back.
Apr 26, 2021 · The tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the great love stories of Greek mythology. While many marriages and love affairs were one-sided or violent, the poet and his bride were a couple who truly had love for one another.
Orpheus and Eurydice. The ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice (Greek: Ὀρφεύς, Εὐρυδίκη, Orpheus, Eurydikē) concerns the fateful love of Orpheus of Thrace for the beautiful Eurydice. Orpheus was the son of Oeagrus and the muse Calliope.
- The Forgotten Blessing
- The Death of Eurydice
- Orpheus’ Descent Into Hades
- The Death of Orpheus
- Orpheus and Eurydice Sources
After presiding over the curious marriage of Iphis and Ianthe, veiled in a saffron mantle, Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, departed swiftly for the land of the Ciconians, located on the south coast of Thrace. There, he was supposed to take part in the festivities of yet another famous wedding, that of the darlings of the Ancient world, Orpheus an...
Soon after the marriage, Eurydice died of a snake bite. Different authors tell different stories as to what led to the fatal encounter. According to the most repeated story, Eurydice fell into a serpent nest after trying to escape from a certain Aristaeus, a shepherd who began to chase her through the forest as soon as he laid his eyes upon her oth...
Orpheus Leaves the Earth
When Orpheus found Eurydice’s body, he so mourned her death that, as Ovid says, he “filled the highs of heaven with the moans of his lament.” His grief-stricken song touched the gods and the nymphs so much, that some of them – possibly Apollo himself – not only suggested that he should go into the kingdom of the dead and ask back for the soul of his wife but also gave him some tips on how to reach safely its rulers, Hades and Persephone. Upon finding of this possibility, Orpheus immediately h...
Orpheus’ Song in the Underworld
“O deities of this dark world beneath the earth, I come not down here because of curiosity to see the glooms of Tartarus: I have come, because my darling wife stepped on a viper that sent through her veins death-poison, cutting off her coming years. You may not know Love down here, but I do: by this Place of Fear, this huge void and these vast and silent realms, renew the life-thread of my loving Eurydice! After all, one day, when grey and old and full of age, she shall be yours yet again and...
The Effect of Orpheus’ Song
Orpheus’ song charmed the hearts of both Charon and Cerberus to such an extent that they allowed the poet to enter the abode of Hades and Persephone, without even worrying about the possible consequences. Needless to add, they weren’t the only ones touched by Orpheus’ dirge. It is said that the bloodless ghosts themselves started weeping and that Tantalus forgot all about his thirst and hunger; the Danaids ceased filling their pitchers with water, and Sisyphus could be seen sitting idly on hi...
Orpheus tried to go back, but this time, not even his singing could soothe Charon, the infernal boatman. For seven days Orpheus sat at the bank of the river Styx, nourished only by his grief and tears until he became all but a voiceless skeleton. Finally, he wandered back to earth, and for the next three days, he roamed his homeland, shunning all w...
The most famous retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice can be found in the first 85 verses of the tenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; Ovid also recounts the death of Orpheus at the beginning of the eleventh book of the Metamorphoses. However, he says nothing of Eurydice being chased by the shepherd Aristaeus: for that part of the story, con...
Orpheus and Eurydice's marriage is doomed from the beginning. Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, doesn't bless their wedding, and Eurydice dies soon after the nuptials.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is the ultimate tragic love story. Perhaps one of the most famous Greek myths, it has inspired many important painters, such as Peter Paul Rubens and Nicolas Poussin.
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Orpheus marries a woman named Eurydice, but immediately after the wedding she is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus’s grief is unbearable, and he uses the power of his music to pass by Cerberus and enter the gates of Hades to try and bring Eurydice back.
