Orpheus and Eurydice

The ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice concerns the fateful love of Orpheus of Thrace, son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, for the beautiful Eurydice (from Eurudike, "she whose justice extends widely"). It may be a late addition to the Orpheus myths, as the latter cult-title suggests those attached to Persephone. It may have been derived from a legend in which Orpheus travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.

Versions

In Virgil's classic version of the legend, it completes his Georgics, a poem on the subject of agriculture. Here the name of Aristaeus (ar-is-tee'us), or Aristaios, the keeper of bees, and the tragic conclusion, was first introduced.

Ovid's version of the myth, in his Metamorphoses, was published a few decades later and employs a different poetic emphasis and purpose. It relates that Eurydice's death was not caused by fleeing from Aristaeus, but by dancing with naiads on her wedding day.

Other ancient writers treated Orpheus' visit to the underworld more negatively. According to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, the infernal deities only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. Plato's representation of Orpheus is in fact that of a coward; instead of choosing to die in order to be with his love, he mocked the deities in an attempt to visit Hades, to get her back alive. As his love was not "true" — meaning that he was not willing to die for it — he was punished by the deities, first by giving him only the apparition of his former wife in the underworld and then by having him killed by women.

Orpheus and Eurydice (rock opera)

Orpheus and Eurydice is a 1975 rock opera album by Russian composer Alexander Zhurbin.

Track listing