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Orpheus Wiki Information

300px. Orpheus (Greek: ??fe??; (OHR-fee-uhs ) or (OHR'-fews ) in English) is a figure from Greek mythology, [1] probably of Thracian origin, [2] venerated by the Greeks and Thracians. [3] He was said to have been born in Pieria at a village called Pimpleia [4], close to Olympus, [5] [6] and to have been king of the Thracian tribe of Cicones [7], among whose maenads he met his death. The obscure mythographer Konon writes of him being King of the Macedonians [8] as well. Orpheus had a brother named Linus that went to Thebes and became a Theban. [9]

His name does not occur in Homer or Hesiod, but he was known by the time of Ibycus (c. 530 BC). Orpheus was called by Pindar "the father of songs" and asserted to be a son of the Thracian river god Oiagros [10] The Muse Calliope is his mother. [11] but as Karl Kerenyi observes, [12] "In the popular mind he was more closely linked to the community of his disciples and adherents than with any particular race or family."A depiction of him in Delphi by Polygnotus [13] of 5th century BC gave him the appearance of a Greek without Thracian garbs or the Phrygian cap.

The Greeks of the Classical age venerated the legendary figure of Orpheus as chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes. Poets like Simonides of Ceos said that, with his music and singing, he could charm birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, [14] and even divert the course of rivers. He was one of the handful of Greek heroes [15] to visit the Underworld and return; even in Hades his song and lyre did not lose their power.

As one of the pioneers of civilization, he is said at various times to have taught humanity the arts of medicine, writing (in one unusual instance, [16] where he substitutes for the usual candidate, Cadmus) and agriculture, where he assumes the Eleusinian role of Triptolemus. More consistently and more 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 Greek god Dionysus; [17] instituted mystic rites both public and private; and prescribed initiatory and purificatory rituals, which his community of followers treasured in Orphic texts. In addition, Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes [18] place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Jason and the Argonauts.

His son was Musaeus, "he of the Muses".

ORPHEUS TICKETS
EVENTDATESortAVAILABILITY
Dallas Opera: Orpheus & Eurydice Tickets 2/12Feb 12, 2025
Wed, 7:30 PM		View Tickets
Dallas Opera: Orpheus & Eurydice Tickets 2/15Feb 15, 2025
Sat, 7:30 PM		View Tickets

Etymology

{{#ifexist:Category:Articles needing additional references from May 2007 right, Athens 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" [19], and Greek orphanos [20], "fatherless, orphan", from which comes English "orphan" by way of Latin. Orpheus would therefore be semantically close to goao [19], "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" [22].Fulgentius a (late 5th – early 6th century AD) mythographer gave the unlikely etymology meaning "best voice" , "Oraia-phonos". [23]

In Strabo

Strabo [24](64 BC – ca. AD 24) surprisingly gives a more mundane telling of Orpheus's life presenting him as a mortal though he mentions that he was a "wizard" that lived and died in a village close to Olympus. He writes that he practiced his skill for money but later gather followers and power that in the end killed him. He uses the word a???te???ta [25] , a term used by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus to characterize Teiresias as a trickster with an excessive desire for possessions. The word a???t?? meant most of the times Charlatan [26] and always had a negative connotation to it.

"The city Dium, in the foot-hills of Olympus, is not on the shore of the Thermaean Gulf, but is at a distance of as much as seven stadia from it. And the city Dium has a village near by, Pimpleia, where Orpheus lived. At the base of Olympus is a city Dium. And it has a village near by, Pimpleia. Here lived Orpheus, the Ciconian, it is said—a wizard who at first collected money from his music, together with his soothsaying and his celebration of the orgies connected with the mystic initiatory rites, but soon afterwards thought himself worthy of still greater things and procured for himself a throng of followers and power. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. And near here, also, is Leibethra. "

Pausanias wrote of an Egyptian which also had the opinion that Orpheus was a magician using the word "???e?se". [27]

Mythology

Early life

According to a fragment of Pindar, [28] and Apollodorus [29] Orpheus' father was Oeagrus (??a????) a Thracian king (or, according to another version of the story, the god Apollo); his mother was the muse Calliope or a daughter of Pierus [30] son of Makednos. In Argonautica the location of Oeagrus and Calliope's wedding is close to Pimpleia [31]. While living with his mother in Parnassus [32] and her eight beautiful sisters, he met Apollo who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo became fond of Orpheus and gave him a little golden lyre, and taught him to play it. Orpheus's mother taught him to make verses for singing. Strabo mentions that he lived in a village called Pimpleia [33] close to Olympus [34] [33].

At the base of Olympus is a city Dium. And it has a village near by, Pimpleia. Here lived Orpheus, the Ciconian, it is said—a wizard who at first collected money from his music, together with his soothsaying and his celebration of the orgies connected with the mystic initiatory rites, but soon afterwards thought himself worthy of still greater things and procured for himself a throng of followers and power. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. And near here, also, is Leibethra. "

Orpheus is said to have established the worship of Hecate in Aegina [36]. In Laconia Orpheus is said to have brought the worship of [37]Demeter Cthonia and that of the "???e? S?te??a?" saviour maid [38] Also in Taygetus a wooden image of Orpheus was said to have been kept by Pelasgians in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian Demeter. [39]

Traveling as an Argonaut

The Argonautica (also Argonautika) (Greek: ?????a?t???) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BCE. Orpheus took part in this adventure and used his skills to aid his companions. Chiron had told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens — the same Sirens encountered by Odysseus in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky islands called Sirenum scopuli and sang beautiful songs that enticed sailors to come to them, which resulted in the crashing of their ship into the islands. When Orpheus heard their voices, he drew his lyre and played music that was more beautiful and louder, drowning out the Sirens' bewitching songs.

Death of Eurydice

The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (also known as Agriope). While fleeing from Aristaeus (son of Apollo), Eurydice ran into a nest of snakes which bit her fatally on her heel. Distraught, Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following and in his anxiety as soon as he reached the upper world he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever. 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 in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium , [40] 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. In fact, Plato's representation of Orpheus is that of a coward, as instead of choosing to die in order to be with the one he loved, he instead mocked the gods by trying to go to Hades and get her back alive. Since his love was not "true"--he did not want to die for love--he was actually punished by the gods, first by giving him only the apparition of his former wife in the underworld, and then by being killed by women.

The 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 descent to the Underworld of Orpheus is paralleled in other versions of a worldwide theme: 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. The Nez Perce tell a story about the trickster figure, Coyote, that shares many similarities with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. [41] The mytheme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance, [42] is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. The warning of not looking back is also found in the Grimms' folk tale "Hansel and Gretel." More directly, the story of Orpheus is similar to the ancient Greek tales of Persephone captured by Hades and similar stories of Adonis captive in the underworld. However, the developed form of the Orpheus myth was entwined with the Orphic mystery cults and, later in Rome, with the development of Mithraism and the cult of Sol Invictus.

Death

thumb envisioned the death of Orpheus in this pen and ink drawing (detail), 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 at Mount Pangaion [43] to salute his god at dawn, but was torn to death by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron, Dionysus and buried in Pieria. Here his death is analogous with the death of Pentheus.

Pausanias writes that Orpheus was buried in Dion and that he met his death there [44]. He writes that the river Helicon sank underground when the women that killed Orpheus tried to wash off their blood-stained hands in his waters [45]

Ovid (Metamorphoses XI) also recounts that the Thracian Maenads, Dionysus' followers, spurned by Orpheus who'd forsworn the love of women after the death of Eurydice and had taken only youths as his lovers, [46] 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 folkore put additional spin on the story: in Albrecht Dürer's drawing (illustration, right ) 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 [47] 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 , ). 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 [48] below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. After the river Sys flooded [49] Leibethra Macedonians took his bones to Dion. His soul returned to the underworld, where he was re-united at last with his beloved Eurydice. Another legend places his tomb at Dion, [43] near Pydna in Macedon. Other accounts of his death are that he killed himself from grief at the failure of his journey to Hades, or that he was struck with lightning by Zeus for having revealed the mysteries of the gods to men. [51]

In another version of the myth Orpheus travels to Aornum in Thesprotia to an old oracle for the dead. In the end Orpheus committs suicide from his grief unable to find Euridice. [52]

Orphic poems and rites

A number of Greek religious poems in hexameters were attributed to Orpheus, as they were to similar miracle-working figures, like Bakis, Musaeus, Abaris, Aristeas, Epimenides, and the Sibyl. Of this vast literature, only two examples survived whole: a set of hymns composed at some point in the second or third century AD, and an Orphic Argonautica composed somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries AD. Earlier Orphic literature, which may date back as far as the sixth century BC, survives only in papyrus fragments or in quotations. Right 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 and abstention from sex, and refrained from eating eggs and beans — which came to be known as the Orphikos bios , or "Orphic way of life". [53]

The Derveni papyrus, found in Derveni, Macedonia (Greece) in 1962, contains a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem in hexameters, a theogony concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, written in the second half of the fifth century BC. Fragments of the poem are quoted making it "the most important new piece of evidence about Greek philosophy and religion to come to light since the Renaissance". [54] The papyrus dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript. 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. [55]

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. [56]



Honor

Orpheus Gate on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Orpheus.

Post-classical Orpheus

Category:Articles which may be unencyclopedic

The Orpheus legend has remained a popular subject for writers, artists, musicians and filmmakers.

Representation in Poetry

  • In The Consolation of Philosophy with a version of this poem, Boethius is warned against short-circuiting his progress in overcoming his philosophical malaise. [57]
  • In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Orpheus along with those of numerous other "virtuous pagans" in Limbo.
  • In The Tale of Orpheus and Erudices his Quene the northern renaissance poet Robert Henryson created an extended poetic treatment of the myth with distinctively Ovidian touches and many references to music.
  • The tale of Orpheus was mixed with fairy lore in the Middle English metrical romance Sir Orfeo . In this version, Sir Orfeo rescues his wife Heurodis from the King of Fairy, whose realm contains both the dead, and people thought to be dead but merely taken by the fairies. This story lasted long enough to be collected in the Child ballads as King Orfeo (albeit in fragmentary form).
  • The tale of Orfeus and Eurydice forms the fitting subject of the first surviving opera, composed by Monteverdi in Mantua, "L'Orfeo". The libretto was written by Alessandro Striggio (Jr).
  • The play Henry VIII by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher includes a song sung by a lady about Orpheus. It is not certain which author wrote the song. [58]
  • The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke published "Orpheus.Eurydice.Hermes" in his collection New Poems . He wrote The Sonnets to Orpheus (see Sonnets to Orpheus ) immediately following his 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 Eurydice as an elegy to his late wife Carol in 2003.
  • The American Poet John Ashbery wrote the poem "Syringa" about Orpheus' failed attempt to rescue Eurydice.
  • 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.
  • The American poet Jorie Graham has written several poems centered around Eurydice, including "Orpheus and Eurydice" from her book The End of Beauty , and "Eurydice on History" from her book Swarm .

Representation in Classical music

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been the subject of operas, cantatas, ballets, and other works through the history of western classical music:
  • Angelo Poliziano's Orfeo , a musical Renaissance considered by some scholars an important forerunner of the opera genre.
  • Jacopo Peri's opera Euridice (1600)
  • Giulio Caccini's opera Euridice (written 1600 / first performance 1602)
  • Claudio Monteverdi's opera Orfeo (1607)
  • Stefano Landi's opera La morte d'Orfeo (1619)
  • Luigi Rossi's opera Orfeo (1647)
  • Marc-Antoine Charpentier's unfinished opera La descente d'Orphée aux enfers (date unknown: mid-1680s?)
  • Louis-Nicolas Clerambault's cantata "Orphee" (1710)
  • Georg Philipp Telemann's opera "Orpheus" (1726)
  • Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer's Musikalischer Parnassus (c. 1738) comprises nine dance suites dedicated to the Muses; the final dance of the Uranie suite "might have been inspired by the Orpheus legend," according to William Porter. [59]
  • Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)
  • Johann Gottlieb Naumann's opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1785)
  • Joseph Haydn's opera L'anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice (composed 1791)
  • Friedrich August Kanne's Orpheus (1807)
  • 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 programmatically modelled after the Orpheus myth.
  • Franz Liszt's symphonic poem Orpheus (1853-54)
  • Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld (1858)
  • Darius Milhaud's opera Les malheurs d'Orphée (1924)
  • Ernst Krenek's opera Orpheus und Eurydike (1926)
  • Stravinsky's ballet Orpheus (1948), choreographed by George Balanchine.
  • Orphee 53, Opera in Musique Concrete style by Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer (1953)
  • Mark Alburger's "Orpheus Cycle" (1982), six art songs to lipogrammatic texts of Matthew Kiell
  • Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Mask of Orpheus (1986) and various other shorter operas, including Gawain and The Corridor
  • Philip Glass's opera Orphée (1993).
  • Leslie Burrs and John A. Williams, Vanqui (2000), a retelling of the Orpheus legend set during the time of the Underground Railroad.
  • Daron Hagen's triple concerto Orpheus and Eurydice (2006)
  • Ingram Marshall, imagined how Orpheus would recall his trip to the Underworld and back to Earth: Orphic Memories (2006), a piece for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Other music

  • The Herd (UK band) had some chart success with their 1967 single "From The Underworld", a psychedelic arrangement and rather "heavy" autobiographical delivery heralding the schizing of "Progressive rock" music from mainstream popular chart material. The lyrics concentrate on the moment of Orpheus's losing Eurydice in their flight from Hades.
  • former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett composed in 2005 an opera for guitar and orchestra named Metamorpheus on the classical Orpheus myth
  • Orpheus is a single by the band Ash from their album Meltdown
  • 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
  • Orpheus is a song on David Sylvian's album Secrets of the Beehive ; complementarily, a later remaster of the album has the song Promise (The Cult of Eurydice)
  • On his 2007 album Nightmoves , jazz artist Kurt Elling references Orpheus and Eurydice in his vocalese (lyric written for a previous instrumental solo) of Dexter Gordon's famous version of Body and Soul
  • On the 2007 album Situation by Buck 65, orpheus is mentioned during the song '1957.'
  • "The playmate sings/ Like Orphée in some thunder world" appears as a lyric in Peter Murphy's 1988 "Indigo Eyes" (Orphée , the French spelling of "Orpheus", is also the title of Jean Cocteau's famous 1950 film, referenced below, which reinterpreted the Orphic myth in then-contemporary postwar France)
  • The song "Eurydice (Don't Follow)" by the band known as The Crüxshadows is about the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
  • Eurydice , a lament for the woman of the title, is a song by Sleepthief on their album The Dawnseeker
  • Italian Progressive rock band La Maschera Di Cera's album Lux Ade contains a track entitled Orpheus
  • Orpheus - The Lowdown is a multimedia collaboration by Peter Blegvad and Andy Partridge (of XTC), available as a CD in an oversize package with a lyric book illustrated by rayographs
  • The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is the inspiration for the Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia song "Reuben and Cerise"
  • Singer songwriter Warwick Lobban recounts the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in his song Pluto's Toy .
  • Orpheus and Greek Mythology are the key-themes of Gothic Kabbalah , Therion (band)'s most recent album.
  • Ivo Papazov recorded an album titled Orpheus Ascending .
  • Anais Mitchell wrote the folk Opera Hadestown is based on the Orpheus Legend.
  • Orpheus is mentioned in the Wallflowers song "Nearly Beloved" off of their 2005 album "Rebel, Sweetheart."
  • Spanish power metal band Dark Moor wrote "Don't Look Back", of the 2009 album "Autumnal", based loosely around the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
  • Orpheo (2009), Techno track of the french producer Samuel Brunel

Drama

  • The Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending is a modern retelling of the Orpheus myth set in 1950s 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.
  • Wildworks' promenade performance Souterrain is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
  • Mary Zimmerman wrote a play called The Metamorphoses (premiered in 1998 at the Ivanhoe Theatre, Chicago), heavily based on Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the play, she tells the story of Orpheus twice, first in a way similar to Ovid, and then in a way similar to Rilke.
  • David Lindsay-Abaire's play Rabbit Hole makes reference to the Orpheus myth, comparing it to a science fiction story written for a couple of bereaved parents.

Film

  • A Love Sublime [60] also known as Orpheus, directed by Tod Browning (1917).
  • Orphée , directed by Jean Cocteau (1949).
  • Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), directed by Marcel Camus (1959), from the play Orfeu da Conceição by Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes, retells the story during the Rio de Janeiro carnival.
  • The Storyteller , retells the story during one of the episodes in the second season.
  • Orfeu , directed by Carlos Diegues (1999), essentially a remake of Black Orpheus .
  • Moulin Rouge! , the film directed by Baz Luhrmann (2001), is, among other things, a take on the idea of the power of music. It draws on the Orpheus myth via the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach, at least according to the writer's/director's DVD commentary.
  • directed by, 2005.
  • Vincent Ward's What Dreams May Come alludes heavily to the Orpheus myth.
  • Shredder Orpheus (1990) is a surreal low budget film directed by Robert McGinley. This version fuses modern skate-punk culture with the Orpheus legend, and is set in a bleak near-future America.
  • Reconstruction, directed by Christoffer Boe (2003). is a modern reenactment of the Orpheus myth.
  • (About the Looking for and the Finding of Love) is a German-language film that retells the Orpheus story in a modern setting, while it is the male character who needs to be rescued from Hades. (2005)
  • (Just Another Love Story) directed by Ole Bornedal (2007) is a Danish-language film that draws on Plato's representation of Orpheus. In this original thriller a third character is bound to share Orpheus' fate for trying to take his place.

Novels

  • Robertson Davies' 1988 novel The Lyre of Orpheus is the third in his Cornish Trilogy
  • The myth of Orpheus was retold in The Sandman comic books by Neil Gaiman, where he is recast as the son of the titular character.
  • It is retold 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 the Anubis being one example.
  • Thomas Pynchon also uses the Death of Orpheus as a motif in his novel "Against the Day", making several allusions to the tale and having his characters discuss Orpheus' looking back, in relation to a larger theme of the search for (and absence of) music, Orpheus' art, in the face of global expansion and warfare.
  • The King Must Die, the first of Mary Renault's novelizations of the life of Theseus, features a unnamed master-bard who performs at the court in Troizen. He regales his audience with stories of wide travels, including reference to great stone structures in Britain. Later, Theseus hears he has been killed in Thrace, and a tomb erected to his honor.
  • 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).
  • The main character in Candelaria Saenz Valiente's novel El infierno de Orfeo Blaumont tries to rid himself from the pompousness and the karma of being called Orpheus by adopting different names.
  • In Fred Saberhagen's short story "Stardust", part of his Berserkers collection of science-fiction shorts, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold through his setting of war-torn galactic future.
  • Janette Turner Hospital uses the Orpheus myth, and refers to Orpheus-inspired music by Gluck and Beethoven, in her 2007 novel, Orpheus Lost .
  • Grace Andreacchi uses the Orpheus myth as the centre of her novel (2001).
  • The British novelist Jonathan Coe employs the Orpheus myth in his 1994 novel What A Carve-Up! whose principal character, the struggling writer Michael Owen, is obsessed by the myth in the form of the film Orphee by Jean Cocteau. Owen is also obsessed by a single scene in the British film comedy that gives Coe's novel its title, in which a timid male character attempts to resist the temptation to glance at the body of a naked woman in a mirror. This scene is deemed to have an Orphean character in terms of the character's desire to gaze openly at that which is forbidden. Owen's obsession with mirrors and screens, that are derived more from Cocteau than from the original myth, are important to the novel's political themes.
  • In John Banville's The Sea , the narrator describes himself as a "lyreless Orpheus", presumably incapable of expressing internal emotions deriving from his lover's death. (18)
  • Orphée L'Enchanteur (a French book) written by Guy Jimenes is the story of Orpheus and his love, loss, and death.
  • Samuel Delany's Nebula award winning novel The Einstein Intersection (1966/67) is heavily based on the Orpheus myth and can be considered a science fiction retelling of the story.
  • In J. R. R. Tolkien's tale of Beren and Lúthien, found in the Silmarillion there is a role reversal in the Orpheus and Eurudice theme. Upon Beren's slaughter by the crazed wolf Carcharoth, Lúthien dies and travels to Mandos (the underworld) and sings before the Valar Namo in the plea that they might be allowed to live.
  • Irish novelist Colin Bateman's "Orpheus Rising" was published in 2008. Set in recent and contemporary New York City and Florida, it uses the myth of Orpheus in the story of an writer's psychological response to the violent death of his wife.
  • The descent of Orpheus into Hades is referenced as a "bedtime story" in the 1999 graphic novel Good-bye, Chunky Rice , by Craig Thompson.

Orpheus in astronomy

In planetary science, Orpheus refers to a proto-planet (also called Theia or Hephaestus) that collided with Earth early in the solar system's history, forming the Moon.

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 century 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 (2nd 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


Orpheus in pop culture



  • In Neil Gaiman's epic comic The Sandman , Orpheus appears as the son of Dream.
  • Orpheus appears as the main Protagonist's first usable Persona in the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 using his music as attacks and his lyre as a weapon. When the main character first summons Thanatos, Orpheus is killed by him from having his body ripped apart and his head being removed first. Orpheus can't speak through his mouth but uses a speaker to talk. Also, Orpheus' appearance is that of a mechanical body with an organic head placed on top of it and a heavy scarf covering the neck, as though his head was all that remained.
  • In the NES/GameBoy video game Battle of Olympus , Orpheus is the main character, travelling around ancient Greece on a quest to save his wife - who was bitten by a poisonous snake - from the clutches of the evil god Hades. However, the Orpheus in this game is married to a certain "Helena" instead of Eurydice, and he only uses his musical instruments on a handful of special occasions, preferring swords and clubs to destroy just about every monster from Greek mythology apart from Medusa and Chaeron. Also, due to software limitations, the name "Orpheus" is too long to be chosen as the hero's in-game name, so he is only referred to as "Orpheus" in the game's manual.
  • In Hercules: The Animated Series , Orpheus, voiced by Richard Simmons, is a widely popular singer, which appears in the episode "Hercules and the Prom" disputed by both Hercules (to play in his prom), and Hades (to make a show in the Underworld).
  • In Young Hercules , Orpheus is a worshiper of the god Bacchus and possesses a special lyre given by his god.
  • In a second season episode of Skins , Effy reads the Orpheus/Eurydice myth to Tony to calm him after his nightmare. The episode also holds some parallels with the myth.

See also

  • Leibethra
  • Pimpleia
  • Aornum

References

  1. The Greeks, who were convinced of his historical existence, placed him in the field of legend; his father's being a river-god places him squarely in myth.
  2. Z. H. Archibald, , ''The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked,'' (Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology) Oxford University Press, 1998, USA ISBN 9780198150473; William Keith Chambers Guthrie, intro. by L. Alderlink, ''Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement'' (Mythos), Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691024995, pp.62-63.
  3. "Orpheus and illiteracy Thracians – the spiritedness of topos." ''Studia in memoriam Velizari'' Velkov, 2000, pp. 165–170.
  4. Orpheus and Greek Religion (Mythos Books) by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, 1993), ISBN-10: 0691024995, page 62
  5. Appolonius, Argonautica, 1.23
  6. Orpheus and Greek religion : a study of the Orphic movement by W. K. C. Guthrie, page 62
  7. Carlos Parada,"Orpheus, king of the Ciconians"
  8. Orpheus and Greek Religion by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, ISBN 0691024995, page 61
  9. Apollodorus, Library and Epitome, 2.4.9, This Linus was a brother of Orpheus; he came to Thebes and became a Theban,
  10. Pindar fragment 126.9.
  11. Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheke'' 1.3.2; ''Argonautica'' 1.23, and the Orphic Hymn 24,12.
  12. Kerenyi, ''The Heroes of the Greeks'' 1959:279f.
  13. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Phocis and Ozolian Locri, 10.30.1,[1]Turning our gaze again to the lower part of the picture we see, next after Patroclus, Orpheus sitting on what seems to be a sort of hill; he grasps with his left hand a harp, and with his right he touches a willow. It is the branches that he touches, and he is leaning against the tree. The grove seems to be that of Persephone, where grow, as Homer thought,2 black poplars and willows. The appearance of Orpheus is Greek, and neither his garb nor his head-gear is Thracian.
  14. Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheke'' 1.3.2; Euripides, ''Iphigeneia at Aulis'', 1212 and ''The Bacchae'', 562; Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 11: "with his songs, Orpheus, the bard of Thrace, allured the trees, the savage animals, and even the insensate rocks, to follow him>"
  15. Others to brave the ''nekyia'' were Odysseus, Theseus and Heracles; Perseus also overcame Medusa in a chthonic setting.
  16. A transcription of an epigram in the form of a literary epitaph of Orpheus, quoted in a lost declamation attached to the name of the sophist Alcidamas, which is discussed by Ivan Mortimer Linforth, "Two Notes on the Legend of Orpheus", ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'' '''62''', (1931):5-17).
  17. Apollodorus (Pseudo Apollodorus), ''Library and Epitome'', 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria."
  18. Apollonius, ''Argonautica'', ''passim''.
  19. Archetypal Imagination: Glimpses of the Gods in Life and Art by Noel Cobb, ISBN 0940262479, page 240
  20. Myth and the polis by Dora Carlisky, ISBN 0801424739, page 46
  21. Archetypal Imagination: Glimpses of the Gods in Life and Art by Noel Cobb, ISBN 0940262479, page 240
  22. Macmillan Dictionary for Students by Ltd. Pan Macmillan, ISBN 002761560X, page 711
  23. Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology by Geoffrey Miles, ISBN 0415147557, 1999, page 57
  24. Strabo, Geography Book 7, Chapter 7"The city Dium, in the foot-hills of Olympus, is not on the shore of the Thermaean Gulf, but is at a distance of as much as seven stadia from it. And the city Dium has a village near by, Pimpleia, where Orpheus lived. At the base of Olympus is a city Dium. And it has a village near by, Pimpleia. Here lived Orpheus, the Ciconian, it is said—a wizard who at first collected money from his music, together with his soothsaying and his celebration of the orgies connected with the mystic initiatory rites, but soon afterwards thought himself worthy of still greater things and procured for himself a throng of followers and power. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. And near here, also, is Leibethra. "
  25. Archaic Period (Greek Literature, Volume 2) by Gregory Nagy, ISBN 0815336837, page 46
  26. Index in Eustathii commentarios in Homeri Iliadem et Odysseam by Matthaeus Devarius, page 8
  27. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.20.1,[1] A man of Egypt said that Pelops received something from Amphion the Theban and buried it where is what they call Taraxippus, adding that it was the buried thing which frightened the mares of Oenomaus, as well as those of every charioteer since. This Egyptian thought that Amphion and the Thracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it was through their enchantments that the beasts came to Orpheus, and the stones came to Amphion for the building of the wall. The most probable of the stories in my opinion makes Taraxippus a surname of Horse Poseidon.
  28. Pindar, frag. 126, line 9, noted in Kerenyi 1959:280.
  29. son of Oeagrus or Apollo and Calliope: Apollod. 1.3.1
  30. son of Muse Calliope or of daughter of Pierus: Paus. 9.30.4
  31. THE ARGONAUTICA, BOOK I,"(ll. 23-34) First then let us name Orpheus whom once Calliope bare, it is said, wedded to Thracian Oeagrus, near the Pimpleian height.
  32. The Greek Gods by Hoopes And Evslin , ISBN 0590441108, ISBN 0590441108, 1995, page 77 His father was a Thracian king; His mother the muse Calliope. For a while he lived on Parnassus with his mother and his eight beautiful aunts and there met Apollo who was courting the laughing muse Thalia . Apollo was taken with Orpheus, gave him his little golden lyre m, and taught him to play. And his mother taught him to make verses for singing.
  33. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books) by Jane Ellen Harrison, 1991, ISBN-10: 0691015147, page 469,"... and `near the city of Dium is a village called Pimpleia where Orpheus lived.... ..."
  34. Strabo, Geography Book 7, Chapter 7"The city Dium, in the foot-hills of Olympus, is not on the shore of the Thermaean Gulf, but is at a distance of as much as seven stadia from it. And the city Dium has a village near by, Pimpleia
  35. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books) by Jane Ellen Harrison, 1991, ISBN-10: 0691015147, page 469,"... and `near the city of Dium is a village called Pimpleia where Orpheus lived.... ..."
  36. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Corinth, 2.30.1 [1] Of the gods, the Aeginetans worship most Hecate, in whose honor every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thracian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron,1 and it has one face and one body. It was Alcamenes,2 in my opinion, who first made three images of Hecate attached to one another, a figure called by the Athenians Epipurgidia (on the Tower); it stands beside the temple of the Wingless Victory.
  37. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Laconia, 3.14.1,[1] but the wooden image of Thetis is guarded in secret. The cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Lower World) the Lacedaemonians say was handed on to them by Orpheus, but in my opinion it was because of the sanctuary in Hermione4 that the Lacedaemonians also began to worship Demeter Chthonia. The Spartans have also a sanctuary of Serapis, the newest sanctuary in the city, and one of Zeus surnamed Olympian.
  38. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Laconia, 3.13.1, Opposite the Olympian Aphrodite the Lacedaemonians have a temple of the Saviour Maid. Some say that it was made by Orpheus the Thracian, others by Abairis when he had come from the Hyperboreans.
  39. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Laconia, 3.20.1,[1] Between Taletum and Euoras is a place they name Therae, where they say Leto from the Peaks of Taygetus ... is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian. Here according to the Lacedaemonian story Heracles was hidden by Asclepius while he was being healed of a wound. In the sanctuary is a wooden image of Orpheus, a work, they say, of Pelasgians
  40. ''Symposium'' 179d.
  41. Lopez, Barry Holstun. ''Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping With His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America.'' Avon Books, 1977, pp. 131-134.
  42. Apollonius of Rhodes, ''Argonautica'', book III: "Let no footfall or barking of dogs cause you to turn around, lest you ruin everything", Medea warns Jason; after the dread rite, "The son of Aison was seized by fear, but even so he did not turn round..." (Richard Hunter, translator).
  43. Orpheus and Greek Religion by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, ISBN 0691024995, page 32
  44. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.1,[1]The Macedonians who dwell in the district below Mount Pieria and the city of Dium say that it was here that Orpheus met his end at the hands of the women. Going from Dium along the road to the mountain, and advancing twenty stades, you come to a pillar on the right surmounted by a stone urn, which according to the natives contains the bones of Orpheus.
  45. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.1,[1] There is also a river called Helicon. After a course of seventy-five stades the stream hereupon disappears under the earth. After a gap of about twenty-two stades the water rises again, and under the name of Baphyra instead of Helicon flows into the sea as a navigable river. The people of Dium say that at first this river flowed on land throughout its course. But, they go on to say, the women who killed Orpheus wished to wash off in it the blood-stains, and thereat the river sank underground, so as not to lend its waters to cleanse manslaughter
  46. Ovid - The Metamorphoses
  47. Carlos Parada," His head fell into the sea and was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos where the Lesbians buried it, and for having done this the Lesbians have the reputation of being skilled in music."
  48. The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context by Marcele Detienne, ISBN 0801869544, page 161
  49. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.1 [1] Immediately when night came the god sent heavy rain, and the river Sys (Boar), one of the torrents about Olympus, on this occasion threw down the walls of Libethra, overturning sanctuaries of gods and houses of men, and drowning the inhabitants and all the animals in the city. When Libethra was now a city of ruin, the Macedonians in Dium, according to my friend of Larisa, carried the bones of Orpheus to their own country.
  50. Orpheus and Greek Religion by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, ISBN 0691024995, page 32
  51. Encyclopedia Britannica - 1911 Edition, Orpheus
  52. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.1,[1] Others have said that his wife died before him, and that for her sake he came to Aornum in Thesprotis, where of old was an oracle of the dead. He thought, they say, that the soul of Eurydice followed him, but turning round he lost her, and committed suicide for grief. The Thracians say that such nightingales as nest on the grave of Orpheus sing more sweetly and louder than others.
  53. Moore, p. 56 says that "the use of eggs and beans was forbidden, for these articles were associated with the worship of the dead".
  54. Richard Janko, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, (2006) of K. Tsantsanoglou, G.M. Parássoglou, T. Kouremenos (editors), 2006. ''The Derveni Papyrus'' (Florence: Olschki) series "Studi e testi per il "Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini", vol. 13]).
  55. Mitford, 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 in the Hymn to Jupiter, quoted by Aristotle in the seventh chapter of his Treatise on the World: ?e?? p??t?? ?e?et?, ?e?? ??at??, x. t. e; and they are found scattered among the writings of the philosophers and historians." The idea of a religion "degenerated from original purity" expressed an Enlightenment idealisation of an assumed primitive state that is one connotation of "primitivism" in the history of ideas.
  56. Guthrie, pp.17-18. "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 "This less worthy but certainly popular side of Orphism is represented for us again by the charms or incantations of Orpheus which we may also read of as early as the fifth century. Our authority is Euripides. We have already noticed the 'charm on the Thracian tablets' in the ''Alcestis'' and in ''Cyclops'' one of the lazy and frightened Satyrs, unwilling to help Odysseus in the task of driving the burning stake into the single eye of the giant, exclaims: 'But I know a spell of Orpheus, a fine one, which will make the brand step up of its own accord to burn this one-eyed son of Earth' (Euripides, ''Cyclops'' 646 = Kern, test. 83).".
  57. The Consolation of Philosophy: Revised Edition by Ancius Boethius and Victor Watts, 1999, Introduction
  58. http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1849.html
  59. William Porter, lecture presented at the Boston Early Music Festival, 11 June 2009. See a report of the concert and lecture at the Chamber Music Today blog.
  60. A love sublime
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