Orpheus

“ Then Orpheus took the lyre, and sang of Chaos, and the making of the wondrous World, and how all things sprang from Love, who could not live alone in the Abyss. And as he sang, his voice rose from the cave, above the crags, and through the tree-tops, and the glens of oak and pine. And the trees bowed their heads when they heard it, and the gray rocks cracked and rang, and the forest beasts crept near to listen, and the birds forsook their nests and hovered round. And old Cheiron claps his hands together, and beat his hoofs upon the ground, for wonder at that magic song. ”

“ This was Orpheus, that best of harpers, who went with the Grecian heroes of the great ship Argo in search of the Golden Fleece.
After his return from the quest, he won Eurydice for his wife, and they were as happy as people can be who love each other and every one else. The very wild beasts loved them, and the trees clustered about their home as if they were watered with music. But even the gods themselves were not always free from sorrow, and one day misfortune came upon that harper Orpheus whom all men loved to honor. ”

“ Then Orpheus, terrible in his anguish, swore that death itself should not forever rob him of his love. His song, which could tame wild beasts and drag the ancient trees from their roots, should quell the powers of hell and snatch back Eurydice from their grasp.
Thus he swore, calling on the gods to help him; and taking his lyre in his hand he set forth on that fearful pilgrimage from which never man—unless, like Hercules, he was a hero, half man and half god—had returned alive. ”

“ Then a voice came from the bough, and Jason heard the words it said, and bade Orpheus play upon the harp, while the heroes waited round, holding the pine-trunk rollers, to help her toward the sea.
So Orpheus took his harp, and began his magic song: “How sweet it is to ride upon the surges, and to leap from wave to wave, while the wind sings cheerful in the cordage, and the oars flash fast among the foam! How sweet it is to roam across the ocean, and see new towns and wondrous lands, and to come home laden with treasure, and to win undying fame!” ”

“ Orpheus, who felt by his own experience, perhaps, the great disadvantage that he had here, of presenting the truth to men before they might be in condition to receive it, instituted the divine mysteries; an admirable school where the initiate, conducted from one degree to another, slowly prepared and tried, received the share of light in proportion to the strength of his intelligence, and gently enlightened, without risk of being dazzled, attained to virtue, wisdom, and truth. ”

“ So you will find that some will tell you that Orpheus is the personification of the winds which "tear up trees as they course along, chanting their wild music," and that Eurydice is the morning "with its short-lived beauty." Others say that Orpheus is "the mythological expression of the delight which music gives to the primitive races," while yet others accept without hesitation the idea that Orpheus is the sun that, when day is done, plunges into the black abyss of night, in the vain hope of overtaking his lost bride, Eurydice, the rosy dawn. ”

“ To-day, as formerly and always, Orpheus, that is to say, Art, should spread his melodious waves, his chords vibrating, like a sweet and irresistible light, over those conflicting elements which rend each other and bleed in the soul of every one of us, as they do in the entrails of every society. Orpheus bewails Eurydice—Eurydice, that emblem of the Ideal engulfed by evil and suffering, whom he is allowed to snatch from the monsters of Erebus, to lead forth from the depths of Cimmerian darkness, but whom he cannot, alas! ”

“ Orpheus thrummed away briskly and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figurehead drank the wave with its marvelous lips, and rising again as buoyant as a swan. The rowers plied their fifty oars, the white foam boiled up before the prow, the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake, while Orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music that the vessel seemed to dance over the billows by way of keeping time to it. ”

“ And, whether they be right or wrong, it would seem that the sadness that comes to us sometimes as the day dies and the last of the sun’s rays vanish to leave the hills and valleys dark and cold, the sorrowful feeling that we cannot understand when, in country places, we hear music coming from far away, or listen to the plaintive song of the bird, are things that very specially belong to the story of Orpheus.
In the country of Thrace, surrounded by all the best gifts of the gods, Orpheus was born. His father was Apollo, the god of music and of song, his mother the muse Calliope. ”

“ So Orpheus sang, and the Sirens, answering each other across the golden sea, till Orpheus's voice drowned the Sirens, and the heroes caught their oars again.
And they cried: "We will be men like Perseus, and we will dare and suffer to the last. ”

“ But the gods, first punishing the Thracian women by turning them into trees, took the lyre of Orpheus and set it among the stars. And Orpheus himself, once more entering by the gate of death the regions of the dead, seeks and finds his beloved Eurydice. Now may they walk side by side, now Orpheus, if he goes before, may look back in safety upon the face of his loved one. For the sorrows of life are over and the pangs of death are past, and no shadow of parting can come between the singer and his love in the Elysium of the Blessed. ”

“ Orpheus falling into a deep melancholy, became a contemner of women-kind, and bequeathed him self to a solitary life in the deserts ; where, by the same melody of his voice and harp, he first drew all manner of wild beasts unto him, who, forgetful of their savage fierceness, and casting off the precipitate provocations of lust and fury, not caring to satiate their voracity by hunting after prey, as at a theatre, in fawning and reconciled amity one towards another, standing all at the gaze about him, and attentively lend their ears to his music. ”

“ XXIV. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE — ARISTAEUS — AMPHION — LINUS — THAMYRIS — MARSYAS — MELAMPUS — MUSAEUS
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope. He was presented by his father with a Lyre and taught to play upon it, which he did to such perfection that nothing could withstand the charm of his music. Not only his fellow-mortals but wild beasts were softened by his strains, and gathering round him laid by their fierceness, and stood entranced with his lay. Nay, the very trees and rocks were sensible to the charm. ”

“ No strength of the flesh can win her, Orpheus, but the strength of a faith unfaltering. I will send for her, and when thou seest her stand within the hall, holding out her hands towards thee, thou must harden thy heart, and turn and flee before her by the way thou camest. For the love of thee she will follow, and she will entreat thee to look at her and give her thy hand over the stony way. ”

“ When Orpheus heard these things his knees shook and his feet paused as if rooted to the ground. But remembering once more his love and all his grief, he struck his lyre and sang, till his dirge, reverberating like a coronach or funeral march, drowned all the sounds of hell. And [85] Charon, the old ferryman, subdued by the melody, ferried him over the ninefold Styx which none save the dead might cross; and when Orpheus reached the other side great companies of pale ghosts flocked round him on that drear shore ”

“ Orpheus is widowed and remains as such in purity; the marriage with Eurydice had not attained consummation, and as the widower of one who was a virgin he rested himself in virginity. The poet is not two-hearted and children of the race of gods love once and once alone. Paternal inspirations, yearnings for an ideal which shall be found beyond the tomb, widowhood made holy in its consecration to the sacred muse. What a revelation in advance of inspirations yet to come. Orpheus, bearing in his heart a wound that nothing but death shall heal, becomes a doctor of souls and bodies ”

“ The great Greek initiator and he who civilised it first was also its first poet, for even in allowing that Orpheus was a mystical or fabulous personality, we must believe in the existence of Musæus and attribute to him the verses which pass under the name of his master. [56] [Pg 87] It matters little to us otherwise whether one of the Argonauts was called Orpheus or not, for the poetic creator has done more than live; he lives in immortality for ever. The Orphic fable is a complete dogma, a revelation of priestly destinies, a new ideal form of the worship of beauty. ”

“ Of all these minstrels none was so famous as Orpheus who had gone with the Argonauts; none could tell truer things about the gods, for he himself was half divine.
But a great grief came to Orpheus, a grief that stopped his singing and his playing upon the lyre. His young wife Eurydice was taken from him. One day, walking in the garden, she was bitten on the heel by a serpent, and straightway she went down to the world of the dead.
Then everything in this world was dark and bitter for the minstrel Orpheus; sleep would not come to him, and for him food had no taste. ”

“ It is occupied by the grove of Persephone, represented in the sparing fashion of Greek painting by a single tree, under which sits Orpheus, his lyre in his hands. No doubt we have here the key to the picture. Orpheus is the central figure of the whole. To Polygnotus he is not merely a departed hero, but priest and hierophant. The song which he sings is the mystic song of immortality. ”

“ ORPHEUS, in Greek legend, the chief representative of the art of song and playing on the lyre, and of great importance in the religious history of Greece. The derivation of the name is uncertain, the most probable being that which connects it with ὀρφ- (“dark,” ὀρφναῖος, ὄρφνη) . In accordance with this, Orpheus may have been originally a god of darkness; or the liberator from the power of darkness by his gift of song; or he may have been so called because his rites were celebrated by night (cf. Dionysus Nyctelius) . It is possible, but very improbable, that Orpheus was an historical personage ”

“ And Orpheus went on his way, with hope beating high in his heart, till he came to the portals of the palace of Death. On the threshold lay Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell, who night and day kept watch beside the gate to see that no one passed in save those who had died upon earth, and that those who had passed him once should pass him never again. When he heard Orpheus coming, he sprang to his feet and snarled and growled and bared his sharp white fangs ”

“ Orpheus, as he passed by, bent down and stroked him, and the fierce beast licked his hands. So did he enter into the gates of Death, and passed through the shadowy halls, till he stood before the throne of Pluto, the king. A dim and awful form did he sit, wrapped about in darkness and mist, and on his right hand sat Persephone, his wife, whom he stole from the meadows of Sicily. ”

“ If we go back to the miracles which Orpheus performed as a pioneer of civilization we find indeed that tones and their movements spread their influence to the wild creatures, which encircled him shorn of their wildness, but they did not extend to humankind, who required the content of a nobler strain. It is something of this latter kind that we must attach to the hymns ascribed to Orpheus, which, in the form we have received from tradition, even though it be not their original one, support mythological and other ideas. ”

“ The Orpheus and Eurydice of Drölling is a performance of great merit. The females, floating in the air before Orpheus, are pale as lilies, and beautiful in death. But he need hardly despair, or run wild as he does. He may easily overtake them; and as to vanishing, they have no appearance of it. Their figures are quite solid and determined in their outline. ”

“ Your sire's and mine, and keep it back nine years.
What's kept at home you cancel by a stroke:
What's sent abroad you never can revoke.
Orpheus, the priest and harper, pure and good,
Weaned savage tribes from deeds and feasts of blood,
Whence he was said to tame the monsters of the wood.
Amphion too, men said, at his desire
Moved massy stones, obedient to the lyre,
And Thebes arose. 'Twas wisdom's province then
To judge 'twixt states and subjects, gods and men,
Check vagrant lust, give rules to wedded folk,
Build cities up, and grave a code in oak. ”

“ Conspicuous among the stars, its horns wide spread over the heavens, is the Lyre, with which Orpheus was wont to captivate everything to which he addressed his song, and even made a journey through Hades itself, and put to sleep the infernal laws. ”

“ In Orpheus's theatre all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and accords of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature ”

“ Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, 81
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, 84
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. 88
Enter Portia and Nerissa [at a distance] . ”

“ And as they neared it, slowly and wearily, they heard sweet songs upon the shore. But when Medea heard it, she started, and cried, "Beware, all heroes, for these are the rocks of the Sirens. You must pass close by them, for there is no other channel; but those who listen to that song are lost."
Then Orpheus spoke, the king of all minstrels, "Let them match their song against mine. I have charmed stones, and trees, and dragons, how much more the hearts of men!" So he caught up his lyre, and stood upon the poop, and began his magic song. ”