Orpheus

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The head of Orpheus, from an 1865 painting by Gustave Moreau.

In Greek legend, Orpheus (Greek: Ὀρφεύς) was the chief representative of the arts of
song and the lyre, and of great importance in the religious history of Greece. The
mythical figure of Orpheus was borrowed by the Greeks from their Thracian neighbors;
the Thracian "Orphic Mysteries", rituals of unknown content, were named after him. (See
Orphism (religion).)

The ancients knew him as a Thracian of Pieria (the coastal region above Mount
Olympus), a magical musician, and also as a priest of Dionysus. Some attribute him as
the founder of the Dionysiac rites. 1
Overview
The name Orpheus does not occur in Homer or Hesiod, but he was known in the time of
Ibycus (c. 530 BC). Pindar (522—442 BC) speaks of him as “the father of songs”.

From the 6th century BC onwards, Orpheus was considered one of the chief poets and
musicians of antiquity, and the inventor or perfector of the lyre. By dint of his music and
singing, he could charm the wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, even arrest
the course of rivers. As one of the pioneers of civilization, he is said to have taught
mankind the arts of medicine, writing and agriculture. Closely connected with religious
life, Orpheus was an augur and seer; practiced magical arts, especially astrology; founded
or rendered accessible many important cults, such as those of Apollo and the Thracian
god Dionysus; instituted mystic rites both public and private; and prescribed initiatory
and purificatory rituals.

George Grote wrote that "Orpheus is celebrated by Pindar as the harper and companion
of the Argonautic maritime heroes." 2

Several etymologies for the name Orpheus have been proposed. A probable suggestion is
that it is derived from a hypothetical PIE verb *orbhao-, "to be deprived", from PIE
*orbh-, "to put asunder, separate". Cognates would include Greek orphe, "darkness", and
Greek orphanos, "fatherless, orphan", from which comes English "orphan" by way of
Latin. Orpheus would therefore be semantically close to goao, "to lament, sing wildly,
cast a spell", uniting his seemingly disparate roles as disappointed lover, transgressive
musician and mystery-priest into a single lexical whole. The word "orphic" is defined as
mystic, fascinating and entrancing, and, probably, because of the oracle of Orpheus,
"orphic" can also signify "oracular".

Several etymologies for the name Orpheus have been proposed. A probable suggestion is
that it is derived from a hypothetical PIE verb *orbhao-, "to be deprived", from PIE
*orbh-, "to put asunder, separate". Cognates would include Greek orphe, "darkness", and
Greek orphanos, "fatherless, orphan", from which comes English "orphan" by way of
Latin. Orpheus would therefore be semantically close to goao, "to lament, sing wildly,
cast a spell", uniting his seemingly disparate roles as disappointed lover, transgressive
musician and mystery-priest into a single lexical whole. The word "orphic" is defined as
mystic, fascinating and entrancing, and, probably, because of the oracle of Orpheus,
"orphic" can also signify "oracular".

Genealogy
According to the best-known tradition, Orpheus was the son of Oeagrus, king of Thrace,
which in pre-historic period seems to describe a wider region from Olymbos to the
Hellespontos Straits, as the Orphic texts (Argonautica) point out that Orpheus was born
in Mount Helicon at Livithra (Pieria), and that his mother was Calliope, the Muse of epic
poetry. In other traditions, Calliope and Apollo were his parents. Orpheus learned music
from Linus, or from Apollo, who gave him his own lyre (made by Hermes out of a turtle
shell) as a gift.

The Argonautic expedition

Despite Orpheus's Thracian origin, he joined the expedition of the Argonauts. Centaur
Chiron had warned Argonaut leader Jason that only with the aid of Orpheus would they
be able to navigate past the Sirens unscathed. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky
islands called Sirenum scopuli and played irresistibly beautiful songs that enticed sailors
and their ships to the islands' craggy shoals. Once shipwrecked on the rocks, the sailors
were destroyed by the Sirens. However, when Orpheus heard the Sirens, he drew his lyre
and played music more beautifully than that of the Sirens, thus drowning out their
alluring but deadly song.

Death of Eurydice
The most famous story in which he figures is that of his wife Eurydice (also known as
Agriope). While fleeing from Aristaeus (son of Apollo), she was bitten by a serpent
which brought her to her death. Distraught, Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so
mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept and gave him advice. Orpheus went down
to the lower world and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (the
only person to ever do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth. But
the condition was attached that he should walk in front of her and not look back until he
had reached the upper world. In his anxiety he broke his promise, and Eurydice vanished
again from his sight. The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first
introduces the name of Aristaeus. Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus' visit
to the underworld; according to Plato, the infernal gods only “presented an apparition” of
Eurydice to him. Ovid says that Eurydice's death was not caused by fleeing from
Aristaeus but by dancing with Naiads on her wedding day.

The famous story of Eurydice may actually be a late addition to the Orpheus myths. In
particular, the name Eurudike ("she whose justice extends widely") recalls cult-titles
attached to Persephone. The myth may have been mistakenly derived from another
Orpheus legend in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has interesting similarities to the Japanese myth of
Izanagi and Izanami, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the
Underworld, and Mayan myth of Ix Chel and Itzamna. Also it is similar to the story of
Lot and his wife when escaping from Sodom. More directly and importantly, the story of
Orpheus bears direct similarity to the ancient Greek tales of Demeter captured by Hades
(where in early myth she is transformed into Cthon-Demeter and later returned as
Proserpina) and similar stories of Adonis or Apollo being captive in the underworld
(described as Cthon-Apollo). This reflection of stories might indeed date back to
cosmogenic and deities focal in Greek prehistory before Zeus became central in Greek
myth, such as Cronos and Gaia. However, the eventual form of the Orpheus myth was
entwined with the mystery cults (called Orphic cults as perhaps a misprision of the old
term Ophidian cults and even older Ova cults), the development of Mithrasism and Sol
Invictus in Rome, and the predecessors of Orpheus. What Orpheus was before the twists
of myth enveloped him with other stories might have been a happy king with a happy
wife and many daughters, but perhaps that was a different king and a different time, a
different place. Only Lethe is wiser than Klio, although it is said they sip of each other's
tongues.

After the death of Eurydice, Orpheus presumably swore off the love of women and took
only youths as his lovers. He is reputed to be the one who introduced pederasty to the
Thracians, teaching them to "love the young in the flower of their youth".

Death of Orpheus
Albrecht Dürer envisaged the death of Orpheus in this pen and ink drawing, 1494
(Kunsthalle, Hamburg)

According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus's lost play Bassarids, Orpheus at the
end of his life disdained the worship of all gods save the sun, whom he called Apollo.
One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus (there are ongoing discussions
whether this is Perperikon or Mount Pangaion) to salute his god at dawn, but was torn to
death by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron, Dionysus. Here his
death is analogous with the death of Dionysus, to whom therefore he functioned as both
priest and avatar.

Ovid (Metamorphoses XI) also recounts that the Thracian Maenads, Dionysus' followers,
angry for having been spurned by Orpheus in favor of "tender boys," first threw sticks
and stones at him as he played, but his music was so beautiful even the rocks and
branches refused to hit him. Enraged, the Maenads tore him to pieces during the frenzy of
their Bacchic orgies. Medieval folklore puts a Christian spin on the story: in Albrecht
Dürer's drawing (illustration, left) the ribbon high in the tree is lettered Orfeus der erst
puseran ("Orpheus, the first sodomite").

His head and lyre, still singing mournful songs, floated down the swift Hebrus to the
Mediterranean shore. There, the winds and waves carried them on to the Lesbos shore,
where the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa;
there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo (Life of Apollonius of Tyana,
book v.14). The lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the
stars. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Leibethra
below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. His soul returned to
the underworld, where he was re-united at last with his beloved Eurydice.

In Attic vase painting, however, the women who attack Orpheus appear to be normal
Thracian women, who are irritated that the bard's songs have stolen their husbands away
from them.
Some archeologies believe to have found the tomb of Orpheus near Tatul in Bulgaria.

Orphic poems and rites

A number of Greek religious poems in hexameter were attributed to Orpheus, as they
were to similar miracle-man figures like Bakis, Musaeus, Abaris, Aristeas, Epimenides,
and the Sybil. Of this vast literature, only two examples survive whole: a set of hymns
composed at some point in the 2nd or 3rd century AD, and an Orphic Argonautica
composed somewhere between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. Earlier Orphic literature,
which may date back as far as the 6th century BC, survives only in papyrus scraps or in
quotations by later authors.

In addition to serving as a storehouse of mythological data along the lines of Hesiod's

Theogony, Orphic poetry was recited in mystery-rites and purification rituals. Plato in
particular tells of a class of vagrant beggar-priests who would go about offering
purifications to the rich, a clatter of books by Orpheus and Musaeus in tow (Republic
364c-d). Those who were especially devoted to these ritual and poems often practiced
vegetarianism, abstention from sex, and refrained from eating eggs and beans — which
came to be known as the Orphikos bios, or "Orphic way of life". 3

The historian William Mitford wrote in 1784 that the very earliest form of a higher and
cohesive ancient Greek religion was manifest in the Orphic poems. 4

W.K.C. Guthrie wrote that Orpheus was the founder of mystery religions and the first to
reveal to men the meanings of the initiation rites. 5

The post-classical Orpheus

In the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, the tale of Orpheus was mixed with
Celtic fairy lore in the Middle English metrical romance Sir Orfeo. It recasts the tale to
Orfeo's rescue of his wife Heurodis from the King of Fairy, whose realm contains both
people thought to be dead but merely taken by the fairies, and the actual dead. This story
lasted long enough to be collected in the Child ballads as King Orfeo (albeit in
fragmentary form).

In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Orpheus along with those of numerous
other "virtuous pagans" in Limbo.

This story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been the subject of operas and cantatas through
the history of western classical music:

 Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600)

 Giulio Caccini's Euridice (written 1600 / first performance 1602)
 Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607 / score 1609)
 Louis-Nicolas Clerambault's "Orphee" (1710)
  Georg Philipp Telemann's "Orpheus" (1736)
 Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer's Musikalischer Parnassus (c. 1738) comprises
nine dance suites dedicated to the Muses; it is thought the final dance of the
Uranie suite tells the story of Orpheus & Eurydice.
 Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)
 Johann Gottlieb Naumann's Orfeo ed Euridice (1785)
 Friedrich August Kanne's Orpheus (1807)
 Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, known as "Orphée aux
enfers", (1858)
 Darius Milhaud's Les malheurs d'Orphée (1924)
 Stravinsky's "Orpheus" (1948).
 Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus (1986)
 Philip Glass's "Orphee" (1993).

In addition, the story served as a basis for Angelo Poliziano's "Orfeo", a musical
renaissance play which is considered by some scholars to be an important forerunner of
the opera genre.

In a 1985 article in 19th Century Music musicologist Owen Jander controversially argued
that the 2nd movement (Andante con moto) of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto was
programatically modelled after the Orpheus myth.

The Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending is a modern retelling of the Orpheus
myth set in 1950's America. Sarah Ruhl's play Eurydice is an interpretive retelling of the
myth of Orpheus from the point of view of his wife, Eurydice. Jean Anouilh's Eurydice
(1941) sets the story among a troupe of performers in 1930s France.

Film retellings and reinterpretations include:

 Orphée, directed by Jean Cocteau (1949)

 Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), directed by Marcel Camus (1959)
 Orfeu, directed by Carlos Diegues (1999), essentially a remake of Black Orpheus.

The Czech-German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, sometimes called the last of the romantic
authors, wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus immediately following the Duino Elegies.

The English poet John Milton repeatedly made allusions to the figure of Orpheus in his
work, most centrally in "Lycidas" (1637).

The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote Orpheus and Euridice as an elegy to his late wife
Carol in 2003.

The myth of Orpheus was also retold in The Sandman comic books by Neil Gaiman, and
in the Hugo and Nebula-winning novella, Goat Song by Poul Anderson.
Russell Hoban's "The Medusa Frequency" alludes heavily to the Orpheus myth. In fact,
the head of Orpheus is a central character, albeit inside another character's mind...

Thomas Pynchon's novel "Gravity's Rainbow" uses the Orpheus myth as one structure,
with Slothrop as Orpheus and postwar Germany as Hades. There are many references to
the afterlife in Slothrop's "descent" into the continent, the yacht theAnubis being one
example.

Salman Rushdie used the Orpheus and Eurydice narrative as a mythic underpinning to the
magical realist novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet (see also the song of the same name
recorded by U2 with lyrics provided by Rushdie).

A modernised version of the myth of Orpheus is told in Nick Cave's song The Lyre Of
Orpheus from the double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.

W. H. Auden wrote a poem called "Orpheus" about the conflicting desires "to be
bewildered and happy or most of all the knowledge of life".

Orpheus appears as a member of Odysseus's last voyage from Ithaca in Nikos

Kazantzakis' epic poem The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel.

XTC's Andy Partridge and Slapp Happy's Peter Blegvad spend 13 years, on and off,
creating the album Orpheus: The Lowdown, a dense mix of music, poetry and spoken
word.

Sonya Taaffe's "Shade and Shadow" presents the Orpheus myth in relation to the modern
fear of death and isolation.

In The Sandman, Orpheus is the son of Dream and Calliope, and his head lived on as an
oracle, protected by a priesthood created by his father. This lasted up to the twentieth
century, when his father granted him the boon of death.

George Selden, in The Cricket in Times Square, has a character describe the cricket as an
Orpheus, and then, just before the cricket leaves, has the music from its concert cause all
of Times Square to fall still, and then escape from the square to cause blocks of New
York city to fall still, listening.

In the TV series Angel, Orpheus is the name given to a drug taken by humans to give
them a rush when their blood is drunk by a vampire. Faith uses it in the series to take
down Angelus.

There is a role-playing game developed by White Wolf Game Studios titled Orpheus. In
it players take on the role of projectors, individuals who can project their souls into the
lands of the dead.
The 2001 film Moulin Rouge! is reminiscent in its plot of the tale of Orpheus and
Eurydice. The character Christian (played by Ewan McGregor) has the gift of song and
follows the Bohemian/Dionysian ideals. A loose allegorical connection can be made
between most characters and events in the two tales. The film appears to be almost
equally inspired by Orpheus & Eurydice and by La Boheme, a cunning act of synthesis
by writer/director Baz Luhrmann.

In the anime Saint Seiya Hades, there is a legendary silver saint named Orpheus, whose
special weapon is a lyre.

The name of the New York-based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was inspired by the
mythical figure.

The name Orpheus is used in the cartoon television series The Venture Bros.. Doctor
Byron Orpheus is a necromancer who lives in a converted wing of Dr. Venture's lab. In a
somewhat ironic scene, Dr. Orpheus visits his master and teacher, who has taken the form
of Cerberus. The intended nature of this scene is unknown, and the meeting of the two in
that manner may be entirely coincidental.

Orpheus's theatrical qualities are memorialized in the name of the numerous "Orpheum"
theaters in cities across the United States, once part of a chain of vaudeville and motion
picture theaters [see Orpheum Circuit, Inc.].

Darkwave band The Cruxshadows refer to the Orphic myth in the song "Eurydice (Don't
follow me)".

Canadian electronic musicians Orphx allude to various aspects of the Orpheus mythos in
their work.

Orpheus is mentioned in a monologue by title character Fefu in Maria Irene Fornes' "Fefu
and Her Friends".

On his debut album "The Dawnseeker" musician Sleepthief wrote the song "Eurydice"
about Orpheus' attempt at saving his wife from Hades.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds retell the story in the 2004 record, "The Lyre of Orpheus."

The radio drama production "Day of the Dead" (2006) by Frederick Greenhalgh is a
creative retelling of the myth of Orpheus, set in modern day New Orleans. In the story, a
young man heads to the city looking for his missing girlfriend and encounters characters
similar to those in the myth and elsewhere in mythology.

Spoken-word myths - audio files

Orpheus myths as told by story tellers
1. Orpheus and the Thracians, read by Timothy Carter, music by Steve Gorn, compiled
by Andrew Calimach

Bibliography of reconstruction: Pindar, Pythian Odes, 4.176 (462 BC); Roman marble
bas-relief, copy of a Greek original from the late 5th c. (c. 420 BC); Aristophanes, The
Frogs 1032 (c. 400 BC); Phanocles, Erotes e Kaloi, 15 (3rd c. BC); Apollonios Rhodios,
Argonautika, i.2 (c. 250 BC); Apollodorus, Library and Epitome 1.3.2 (140 BC);
Diodorus Siculus, Histories I.23, I.96, III.65, IV.25 (1st c. BC); Conon, Narrations, 45
(50 - 1 BC); Virgil, Georgics, IV.456 (37 - 30 BC); Horace, Odes, I.12; Ars Poetica 391-
407 (23 BC); Ovid, Metamorphoses X.1-85, XI.1-65 (AD 8); Seneca, Hercules Furens
569 (1st c. AD); Hyginus, Poetica Astronomica II.7 Lyre (2st c. AD); Pausanias,
Description of Greece, 2.30.2, 9.30.4, 10.7.2 (AD 143 - 176); Anonymous, The
Clementine Homilies, Homily V Chapter XV.-Unnatural Lusts (c. AD 400); Anonymous,
Orphic Argonautica (5th c. AD); Stobaeus, Anthologium (c. AD 450); Second Vatican
Mythographer, 44. Orpheus

[edit] Honours
Orpheus Gate on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named for
Orpheus.

[edit] Notes
 1
C.H. Moore, p. 52
 2
G. Grote, p.21
 3
C.H. Moore, p. 56: "The use of eggs and beans was forbidden, for these articles
were associated with the worship of the dead".
 4
William Mitford, The History of Greece, 1784. Cf. v.1, Chapter II, Religion of
the Early Greeks, p.89. "But the very early inhabitants of Greece had a religion far
less degenerated from original purity. To this curious and interesting fact,
abundant testimonies remain. They occur in those poems, of uncertain origin and
uncertain date, but unquestionably of great antiquity, which are called the poems
of Orpheus or rather the Orphic poems [particularly in the Hymn to Jupiter,
quoted by Aristotle in the seventh chapter of his Treatise on the World: Ζευς
πρωτος γενετο, Ζευς υςατος, x. τ. ε]; and they are found scattered among the
writings of the philosophers and historians."
 5
W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion: a Study of the Orphic Movement,
p.17. "As founder of mystery-religions, Orpheus was first to reveal to men the
meaning of the rites of initiation (teletai). We read of this in both Plato and
Aristophanes (Aristophanes, Frogs, 1032; Plato, Republic, 364e, a passage which
suggests that literary authority was made to take the responsibility for the rites".
Guthrie goes on to write about "... charms and incantations of Orpheus which we
may also read of as early as the fifth century BC. Our authority is Euripides,
Alcestis (referencing the Charm of the Thracian Tablets) and in Cyclops, the spell
of Orpheus".
References
 Ovid, Metamorphoses X, 1-105; XI, 1-66; Apollodorus, Bibliotheke I, iii, 2; ix, 16
& 25; Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica I, 23- 34; IV, 891-909.
 Albertus Bernabé (ed.), Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et
fragmenta. Poetae Epici Graeci. Pars II. Fasc. 1. Bibliotheca Teubneriana,
München/Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2004. ISBN 3-598-71707-5. review of this book
 George Grote, A History of Greece, 1846.
 William Keith Chambers Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion: a Study of the
Orphic Movement, 1935.
 William Mitford, The History of Greece, 1784. Cf. v.1, Chapter II, Religion of the
Early Greeks.
 Clifford H. Moore, Religious Thought of the Greeks, 1916.
 Erwin Rohde, Psyche, 1925. cf. Chapter 10, The Orphics.
 William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870,
article on Orpheus, [1]
 The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus (tr. Thomas Taylor), 1896. [2]
 Martin Litchfield West, The Orphic Poems, 1983. There is a sub-thesis in this
work that early Greek religion was heavily influenced by Central Asian
shamanistic practices. One major point of contact was the ancient Crimean city of
Olbia.