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Orpheus

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For other uses, see Orpheus (disambiguation).
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Orpheus
Roman Orpheus mosaic, a very common subject. He wears a Phrygian cap and is surrounded by the animals charmed by lyre-playing
AbodePimpleia, Pieria
SymbolLyre
Genealogy
Born
Pimpleia, Pieria
Died
Pangaion Hills, Odomantice
ParentsOeagrus and Calliope
SpouseEurydice
ChildrenMusaeus

In Greek mythology, Orpheus (/ˈɔːrfiːəs, ˈɔːrfjuːs/; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: [or.pʰeú̯s]) was a Thracian bard,[1][2][3][4] legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece,[5] and even descended into the underworld of Hades, to recover his lost wife Eurydice.[6]

Ancient Greek authors such as Strabo and Plutarch note Orpheus's Thracian origins.[7] Orpheus was called the ruler of the Bistonian Pieria, a region inhabited by the Thracian tribes Bistones and Pieres[8] but others have identified him as a member of the Thracian tribe Ciconi, that lived in the Thracian Bisaltia.[7][9]

The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus, who got tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.[10]

For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries.[11] He was credited with the composition of a number of works, including several theogonies, the Orphic Hymns,[12] the Orphic Argonautica,[13] the Lithica[14] and the Hexameter poem.[15] Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles.[16]

Etymology

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Several etymologies for the name Orpheus have been proposed. A probable suggestion is that it is derived from a hypothetical PIE root *h₃órbʰos 'orphan, servant, slave' and ultimately the verb root *h₃erbʰ- 'to change allegiance, status, ownership'.[17] Cognates could include ‹See Tfd›Greek: ὄρφνη (órphnē; 'darkness')[18] and ὀρφανός (orphanós; 'fatherless, orphan')[19] from which comes English 'orphan' by way of Latin.

Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early 6th century AD, gave the unlikely etymology meaning "best voice", "Oraia-phonos".[20]

Background

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Although Aristotle did not believe that Orpheus existed, all other ancient writers believed he once was a real person, though living in remote antiquity. Most of them believed that he lived several generations before Homer.[21] The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a two-word fragment of the 6th century BC lyric poet Ibycus: onomaklyton Orphēn ('Orpheus famous-of-name'). He is not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod.[22] Most ancient sources accept his historical existence; Aristotle is an exception.[23][24] Pindar calls Orpheus 'the father of songs'[25] and identifies him as a son of the Thracian mythological king Oeagrus[26] and the Muse Calliope.[27]

Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus as the greatest of all poets and musicians; it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus perfected it. Poets such as Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus's music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance,[28] and divert the course of rivers.

Orpheus was one of the handful of Greek heroes[29] to visit the underworld and return; his music and song had power even over Hades. The earliest known reference to this descent to the underworld is the painting by Polygnotus (5th century BC) described by Pausanias (2nd century AD), where no mention is made of Eurydice. Euripides and Plato both refer to the story of his descent to recover his wife, but do not mention her name; a contemporary relief (about 400 BC) shows Orpheus and his wife with Hermes. The elegiac poet Hermesianax called her Agriope; and the first mention of her name in literature is in the Lament for Bion (1st century BC).[21]

Some sources credit Orpheus with further gifts to humankind: medicine, which is more usually under the auspices of Asclepius (Aesculapius) or Apollo; writing,[30] which is usually credited to Cadmus; and agriculture, where Orpheus assumes the Eleusinian role of Triptolemus as giver of Demeter's knowledge to humankind. Orpheus was an augur and seer; he practiced magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus,[31] and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes[32] place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Jason and the Argonauts. Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban.[33] He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, and to have made lions and tigers obedient to him. Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and civilization to savages.[34]

Strabo (64 BC – c. AD 24) presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a village close to Olympus.[7] "Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him." He made money as a musician and "wizard" – Strabo uses αγυρτεύοντα (agurteúonta),[35] also used by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus to characterize Tiresias as a trickster with an excessive desire for possessions. Αγύρτης (agúrtēs) most often meant 'charlatan'[36] and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Egyptian who considered Orpheus a μάγευσε (mágeuse), i.e., magician.[37][non-primary source needed]

"Orpheus ... is repeatedly referred to by Euripides, in whom we find the first allusion to the connection of Orpheus with Dionysus and the infernal regions: he speaks of him as related to the Muses (Rhesus 944, 946); mentions the power of his song over rocks, trees, and wild beasts (Medea 543, Iphigenia in Aulis 1211, Bacchae 561, and a jocular allusion in Cyclops 646); refers to his charming the infernal powers (Alcestis 357); connects him with Bacchanalian orgies (Hippolytus 953); ascribes to him the origin of sacred mysteries (Rhesus 943), and places the scene of his activity among the forests of Olympus (Bacchae 561.)"[38] "Euripides [also] brought Orpheus into his play Hypsipyle, which dealt with the Lemnian episode of the Argonautic voyage; Orpheus there acts as coxswain, and later as guardian in Thrace of Jason's children by Hypsipyle."[21]

Orpheus mosaic at Dominican Museum, Rottweil, Germany, 2nd c. AD

"He is mentioned once only, but in an important passage, by Aristophanes (Frogs 1032), who enumerates, as the oldest poets, Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and Homer, and makes Orpheus the teacher of religious initiations and of abstinence from murder ..."[38]

"Plato (Apology, Protagoras), ... frequently refers to Orpheus, his followers, and his works. He calls him the son of Oeagrus (Symposium), mentions him as a musician and inventor (Ion and Laws bk 3.), refers to the miraculous power of his lyre (Protagoras), and gives a singular version of the story of his descent into Hades: the gods, he says, imposed upon the poet, by showing him only a phantasm of his lost wife, because he had not the courage to die, like Alcestis, but contrived to enter Hades alive, and, as a further punishment for his cowardice, he met his death at the hands of women (Symposium 179d)."[38]

"Earlier than the literary references is a sculptured representation of Orpheus with the ship Argo, found at Delphi, said to be of the sixth century BC."[21]

Four other people are traditionally called Orpheus: "The second Orpheus was an Arcadian, or, according to others, a Ciconian, from the Thracian Bisaltia, and is said to be more ancient than Homer and the Trojan War. He composed fabulous figments called mythpoeai and epigrams. The third Orpheus was of Odrysius, a city of Thrace, near the river Hebrus; but Dionysius in Suidas denies his existence. The fourth Orpheus was of Crotonia; flourished in the time of Pisistratus, about the fiftieth Olympiad, and is, I have no doubt, the same with Onomacritus, who changed the dialect of these hymns. He wrote Decennalia, and in the opinion of Gyraldlus the Argonautics, which are now extant under the name of Orpheus, with other writings called Orphical, but which according to Cicero some ascribe to Cecrops the Pythagorean. But the last Orpheus [the fifth] was Camarinseus, a most excellent versifier; and the same, according to Gyraldus, whose descent into Hades is so universally known."[9]

Mythology

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Orpheus's genealogy

Origin

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Some ancient Greek authors, such as Strabo and Plutarch, write of Orpheus as having a Thracian origin (through his father, Oeagrus).[1][2][3] Although these traditional accounts have been uncritically accepted by some historians,[1] they have been put into question by others, since it was only in the mid-/late 5th century that Orpheus acquired Thracian attributes.[39][40] Additionally, as André Boulanger notes, "the most characteristic features of Orphism—consciousness of sin, need of purification and redemption, infernal punishments—have never been found among the Thracians".[1] Indeed, the introduction of the worship of the Muses in the times of Archelaos, the genealogies featuring Apollo, Pierus and Methone, Orpheus's tomb in Leibethra and the importance of this gesture as a part of the king's cultural policy, makes the hypothesis of the Pierian, or Macedonian, roots of Orpheus, highly probable.[41][42] The testimonies referring to his death, grave and heroic worship, for example early attestations to the existence of a real, or fictitious, gravestone epigram of Orpheus, point most strongly to his Macedonian links.[41] Nevertheless, the Pierians were a Thracian tribe, while the origins of the Ancient Macedonians is obscure.

Early life

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Important sites in the life and travels of Orpheus

According to Apollodorus[4] and a fragment of Pindar,[43] Orpheus's father was Oeagrus, a Thracian king.[44] His mother was (1) the muse Calliope,[45] (2) her sister Polymnia,[46] (3) a daughter of Pierus,[47] son of Makednos or (4) lastly of Menippe, daughter of Thamyris.[48] Pindar, however, seems to call Orpheus the son of Apollo in his Pythian Odes,[49] and a scholium on this passage adds that the mythographer Asclepiades of Tragilus considered Orpheus to be the son of Apollo and Calliope.[50] According to Tzetzes, he was from Bisaltia.[51] His birthplace and place of residence was Pimpleia[52][53] close to the Olympus. Strabo mentions that he lived in Pimpleia.[7][53] According to the epic poem Argonautica, Pimpleia was the location of Oeagrus's and Calliope's wedding.[54] While living with his mother and her eight beautiful sisters in Parnassus, he met Apollo, who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo, as the god of music, gave Orpheus a golden lyre and taught him to play it.[55] Orpheus's mother taught him to make verses for singing. He is also said to have studied in Egypt.[56]

Orpheus is said to have established the worship of Hecate in Aegina.[57] In Laconia Orpheus is said to have brought the worship of Demeter Chthonia[58] and that of the Κόρες Σωτείρας (Kóres Sōteíras; 'Saviour Maidens').[clarification needed][59] Also in Taygetos a wooden image of Orpheus was said to have been kept by Pelasgians in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian Demeter.[60]

According to Diodorus Siculus, Musaeus of Athens was the son of Orpheus.[61]

Adventure as an Argonaut

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Main article: Argonautica
Cave of Orpheus's oracle in Antissa, Lesbos

The Argonautica (Ἀργοναυτικά) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. Orpheus took part in this adventure and used his skills to aid his companions. Chiron 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 ships into the islands. When Orpheus heard their voices, he drew his lyre and played music that was louder and more beautiful, drowning out the Sirens' bewitching songs. According to 3rd century BC Hellenistic elegiac poet Phanocles, Orpheus loved the young Argonaut Calais, "the son of Boreas, with all his heart, and went often in shaded groves still singing of his desire, nor was his heart at rest. But always, sleepless cares wasted his spirits as he looked at fresh Calais."[62][63]

Death of Eurydice

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See also: Orpheus and Eurydice
Orpheus with the lyre and surrounded by beasts (Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens)

The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (sometimes referred to as Euridice and also known as Argiope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and suffered a fatal bite on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such sad and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld. His music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, 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. Orpheus set off with Eurydice following; however, as soon as he had reached the upper world, he immediately turned to look at her, forgetting in his eagerness that both of them needed to be in the upper world for the condition to be met. As Eurydice had not yet crossed into the upper world, she vanished for the second time, this time forever.

The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first introduces the name of Aristaeus (by the time of Virgil's Georgics, the myth has Aristaeus chasing Eurydice when she was bitten by a serpent) and the tragic outcome.[64] Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus's visit to the underworld in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium,[65] the infernal gods only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. 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 to bring 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. In Ovid's account, however, Eurydice's death by a snake bite is incurred while she was dancing with naiads on her wedding day.

Orpheus (left, with lyre) among the Thracians, from an Attic red-figure bell-krater (c. 440 BC)[66]

Virgil wrote in his poem that Dryads wept from Epirus and Hebrus up to the land of the Getae (north east Danube valley) and even describes him wandering into Hyperborea and Tanais (ancient Greek city in the Don river delta)[67] due to his grief.

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. According to the theories of poet Robert Graves, the myth may have been derived from another Orpheus legend, in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.[68]

The myth theme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance,[69] is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. 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

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The Death of Orpheus, detail from a silver kantharos, 420–410 BC, part of the Vassil Bojkov collection, Sofia, Bulgaria

According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus's lost play Bassarids, Orpheus, towards the end of his life, disdained the worship of all gods except Apollo. One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion[70] to salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to shreds by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron (Dionysus) and was buried in Pieria.[31][71]

But having gone down into Hades because of his wife and seeing what sort of things were there, he did not continue to worship Dionysus, because of whom he was famous, but he thought Helios to be the greatest of the gods, Helios whom he also addressed as Apollo. Rousing himself each night toward dawn and climbing the mountain called Pangaion, he would await the Sun's rising, so that he might see it first. Therefore, Dionysus, being angry with him, sent the Bassarides, as Aeschylus the tragedian says; they tore him apart and scattered the limbs.[72]

Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre (1865) by Gustave Moreau

Here his death is analogous with that of Pentheus, who was also torn to pieces by Maenads; and it has been speculated that the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or even an incarnation of Dionysus.[73] Both made similar journeys into Hades, and Dionysus-Zagreus suffered an identical death.[74] Pausanias writes that Orpheus was buried in Dion and that he met his death there.[75] He writes that the river Helicon sank underground when the women that killed Orpheus tried to wash off their blood-stained hands in its waters.[76] Other legends claim that Orpheus became a follower of Dionysus and spread his cult across the land. In this version of the legend, it is said that Orpheus was torn to shreds by the women of Thrace for his inattention.[77]

Ovid recounts that Orpheus

had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his affection to young boys and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering this side of manhood.

— Ovid, trans. A. S. Kline, Ovid: The Metamorphoses, Book X

Feeling spurned by Orpheus for taking only male lovers (eromenoi), the Ciconian women, followers of Dionysus,[78] 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 women tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies.[79] In Albrecht Dürer's drawing of Orpheus's death, based on an original, now lost, by Andrea Mantegna, a ribbon high in the tree above him is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran ("Orpheus, the first pederast").[80]

Death of Orpheus (1494) by Albrecht Dürer

His head, still singing mournful songs, floated along with his lyre down the River Hebrus into the sea, after which the winds and waves carried them to the island of Lesbos,[81] at the city of Methymna; there, the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa;[82] there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo.[83] In addition to the people of Lesbos, Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia consulted the oracle, and his reputation spread as far as Babylon.[84]

Orpheus's 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[85] below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. After the river Sys flooded[86] Leibethra, the Macedonians took his bones to Dion. Orpheus's soul returned to the underworld, to the fields of the Blessed, where he was reunited at last with his beloved Eurydice.

Another legend places his tomb at Dion,[70] near Pydna in Macedon. In another version of the myth, Orpheus travels to Aornum in Thesprotia, Epirus to an old oracle for the dead. In the end Orpheus commits suicide from his grief unable to find Eurydice.[87]

"Others said that he was the victim of a thunderbolt."[88]

Orphic poems and rites

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Main article: Orphic literature
Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus (1900) by John William Waterhouse

On the writings of Orpheus, Freeman, in the 1946 edition of The Pre- Socratic Philosophers pp. 4–8, writes:[89]

"In[clarification needed] the fifth and fourth centuries BC, there existed a collection of hexametric poems known as Orphic, which were the accepted authority of those who followed the Orphic way of life, and were by them attributed to Orpheus himself. Plato several times quotes lines from this collection; he refers in the Republic to a "mass of books of Musaeus and Orpheus", and in the Laws to the hymns of Thamyris and Orpheus, while in the Ion he groups Orpheus with Musaeus and Homer as the source of inspiration of epic poets and elocutionists. Euripides in the Hippolytus makes Theseus speak of the "turgid outpourings of many treatises", which have led his son to follow Orpheus and adopt the Bacchic religion. Alexis, the fourth century comic poet, depicting Linus offering a choice of books to Heracles, mentions "Orpheus, Hesiod, tragedies, Choerilus, Homer, Epicharmus". Aristotle did not believe that the poems were by Orpheus; he speaks of the "so-called Orphic epic", and Philoponus (seventh century AD) commenting on this expression, says that in the De Philosophia (now lost) Aristotle directly stated his opinion that the poems were not by Orpheus. Philoponus adds his own view that the doctrines were put into epic verse by Onomacritus. Aristotle when quoting the Orphic cosmological doctrines attributes them to "the theologoi", "the ancient poets", "those who first theorized about the gods".

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.[90] Those who were especially devoted to these rituals 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".[91] 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.[92] There is also a reference, not mentioning Orpheus by name, in the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus, where it is said that the fate of the soul in Hades is described on certain bronze tablets which two seers had brought to Delos from the land of the Hyperboreans.

Nymphs Listening to the Songs of Orpheus (1853) by Charles Jalabert

A number of Greek religious poems in hexameters were also 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 works survived whole: the Orphic Hymns, a set of 87 poems, possibly composed at some point in the second or third century, and the epic Orphic Argonautica, composed somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries. Earlier Orphic literature, which may date back as far as the sixth century BC, survives only in papyrus fragments or in quotations. Some of the earliest fragments may have been composed by Onomacritus.[93]

Aelian (second century AD) gave the chief reason against believing in them: at the time when Orpheus is said to have lived, the Thracians knew nothing about writing. It came therefore to be believed that Orpheus taught, but left no writings, and that the epic poetry attributed to him was written in the sixth century BC by Onomacritus. Onomacritus was banished from Athens by Hipparchus for inserting something of his own into an oracle of Musaeus when entrusted with the editing of his poems. It may have been Aristotle who first suggested, in the lost De Philosophia, that Onomacritus also wrote the so-called Orphic epic poems. By the time when the Orphic writings began to be freely quoted by Christian and Neo-Platonist writers, the theory of the authorship of Onomacritus was accepted by many.

Orpheus (1854), by Gabriel Thomas

The Neo-Platonists quote the Orphic poems in their defence against Christianity, because Plato used poems which he believed to be Orphic. It is believed that in the collection of writings which they used there were several versions, each of which gave a slightly different account of the origin of the universe, of gods and men, and perhaps of the correct way of life, with the rewards and punishments attached thereto."[89]

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.[94] The papyrus dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript.

Post-Classical interpretations

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Classical music

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Orpheus charming the beasts. Engraving by Regius for Ovid's Metamorphoses Book X, 143

The Orpheus motif has permeated Western culture and has been used as a theme in all art forms. Early examples include the Breton lai Sir Orfeo from the early 13th century and musical interpretations like Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600, though titled with his wife's name, the libretto is based entirely upon books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses and therefore Orpheus's viewpoint is predominant).

Subsequent operatic and musical interpretations include:

Literature

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Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus (1922) are based on the Orpheus myth. Poul Anderson's Hugo Award-winning novelette "Goat Song", published in 1972, is a retelling of the story of Orpheus in a science fiction setting. Some feminist interpretations of the myth give Eurydice greater weight. Margaret Atwood's Orpheus and Eurydice Cycle (1976–1986) deals with the myth, and gives Eurydice a more prominent voice. Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice likewise presents the story of Orpheus's descent to the underworld from Eurydice's perspective. Ruhl removes Orpheus from the center of the story by pairing their romantic love with the paternal love of Eurydice's dead father.[95] David Almond's 2014 novel A Song for Ella Grey was inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2015.[96] The story of Orpheus is mentioned in Rick Riordan's fantasy novels The Last Olympian and The Sun and the Star where the entrance to the Underworld that Orpheus had opened, the "Door of Orpheus," has moved to Central Park in Manhattan. In the books, it's used by Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo, and Will Solace to sneak into the Underworld. Due to Orpheus creating it with his music, the door can only be opened by music being played for it.

Film and stage

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Death of Orpheus by Mexican artist Antonio García Vega

• Vinicius de Moraes’s play Orfeu da Conceição (1956), later adapted by Marcel Camus in the 1959 film Black Orpheus, tells the story in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. Jean Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy – The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950) and Testament of Orpheus (1959) – was filmed over thirty years, and is based in many ways on the story. Philip Glass adapted the second film into the chamber opera Orphée (1991), part of an homage triptych to Cocteau. Nikos Nikolaidis's 1975 film Evrydiki BA 2037 is an innovative perspective on the classic Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. Baz Luhrmann's 2001 jukebox musical film Moulin Rouge! is also inspired by the myth. Anaïs Mitchell's 2010 folk opera musical Hadestown retells the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice with a score inspired by American blues and jazz, portraying Hades as the brutal work-boss of an underground mining city. Mitchell, together with director Rachel Chavkin, later adapted her album into a multiple Tony award-winning stage musical. Reeve Carney originated the role on Broadway. Sarah Ruhl's play Eurydice examines the myth from the perspective of Eurydice, and the myth features as one of the tales told in Mary Zimmerman's play Metamorphoses.

• Kaos (TV series), (2024) a mythological comedy created by Charlie Covell for Netflix

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d Orpheus's Thracian origin, already maintained by Strabo and Plutarch, has been adopted again by E. Rohde (Psyche), by E. Mass (Orpheus), and by P. Perdrizet (Cultes et mythes du Pangée). But A. Boulanger has discerningly observed that “the most characteristic features of Orphism—consciousness of sin, need of purification and redemption, infernal punishments—have never been found among the Thracians”. For more see: Mircea Eliade (2011) History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity, translated by Willard R. Trask, University of Chicago Press, p. 483, ISBN 022602735X.
  2. ^ a b Anthi Chrysanthou, Defining Orphism: The Beliefs, the ›teletae‹ and the Writings, (2020) Volume 94 of Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 3110678454: Orpheus's place of origin was Thrace and according to most ancient sources he was the son of Oeagrus and muse Kalliope.
  3. ^ a b Androtion, an Attidographer writing in the fourth century BCE, focused precisely on Orpheus's Thracian origin, and the well-known illiteracy of his people...For more see: Graziosi, Barbara (2018). "Still Singing: The Case of Orpheus". In Nora Goldschmidt; Barbara Graziosi (eds.). Tombs of the Ancient Poets: Between Literary Reception and Material Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0192561039.
  4. ^ a b Son of Oeagrus and Calliope: Apollodorus, 1.3.2 & 1.9.16
  5. ^ Apollodorus, 1.9.16
  6. ^ Cartwright, Mark (2020). "Orpheus". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-07-26.
  7. ^ a b c d Strabo, 7.7: "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."
  8. ^ Apollonius Rhodius, 1.32–34
  9. ^ a b Taylor, Thomas (1821) [1787]. The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus. Cheswick: C. Whittingham College House. pp. li–lii. ark:/13960/t2v47bg2h.
  10. ^ Geoffrey Miles, Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology (Routledge, 1999), p. 54.
  11. ^ Pausanias, 2.30.2
  12. ^ "Orphic Hymns". www.theoi.com.
  13. ^ "Orphic Argonautica". topostext.org.
  14. ^ Gunk, Wretch (January 1865). The Lithica -"Orpheus on Gems" taken from Natural History of Precious Stones and Gems by Charles William King.
  15. ^ Janko, Richard (2001). "The Derveni Papyrus ("Diagoras of Melos, Apopyrgizontes Logoi?"): A New Translation". Classical Philology. 96: 1–32. doi:10.1086/449521. ISSN 0009-837X. S2CID 162191106.
  16. ^ Guthrie, William Keith (1993-10-10). Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02499-8.
  17. ^ Cf. "Ὀρφανός" in: Etymological Dictionary of Greek, ed. Robert S. P. Beekes. First published online[where?] October 2010.
  18. ^ Cobb, Noel. Archetypal Imagination, Hudson, New York: Lindisfarne Press, p. 240. ISBN 0-940262-47-9
  19. ^ Freiert, William K. (1991). Pozzi, Dora Carlisky; Wickersham, John M. (eds.). "Orpheus: A Fugue on the Polis". Myth and the Polis. Cornell University Press: 46. ISBN 0-8014-2473-9.
  20. ^ Miles, Geoffrey. Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 57. ISBN 0-415-14755-7
  21. ^ a b c d Freeman, Kathleen (1946). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 1.
  22. ^ Ibycus, Fragments 17 (Diehl); M. Owen Lee, Virgil as Orpheus: A Study of the Georgics State University of New York Press, Albany (1996), p. 3.
  23. ^ Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Harvard University Press (1948), p. 1.
  24. ^ Aristotle (1952). W. D. Ross; John Alexander Smith (eds.). The Works of Aristotle. Vol. XII–Fragments. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 80.
  25. ^ Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.176
  26. ^ Pindar, fr. 126.9
  27. ^ Apollodorus, 1.3.2; Argonautica 1.23 & Orphic Hymn 24.12
  28. ^ Apollodorus, 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."
  29. ^ Others to brave the nekyia were Odysseus, Theseus and Heracles; Perseus also overcame Medusa in a chthonic setting.
  30. ^ A single literary epitaph, attributed to the sophist Alcidamas, credits Orpheus with the invention of writing. See Ivan Mortimer Linforth, "Two Notes on the Legend of Orpheus", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 62, (1931):5–17.
  31. ^ a b Apollodorus, 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria."
  32. ^ Apollonius, Argonautica passim
  33. ^ Apollodorus, Library and Epitome, 2.4.9. This Linus was a brother of Orpheus; he came to Thebes and became a Theban.
  34. ^ Godwin, William (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 44.
  35. ^ Gregory Nagy, Archaic Period (Greek Literature, Volume 2), ISBN 0-8153-3683-7, p. 46.
  36. ^ Index in Eustathii commentarios in Homeri Iliadem et Odysseam by Matthaeus Devarius, p. 8.
  37. ^ Pausanias, 6.20.18: "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."
  38. ^ a b c Smith, William (1870). Dictionary of Greek And Roman Biography And Mythology. Vol. 3. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. p. 60. ark:/13960/t23b60t0r.
  39. ^ Watson, Sarah Burges (2013). "Muses of Lesbos or (Aeschylean) Muses of Pieria? Orpheus' Head on a Fifth-century Hydria". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 53 (3): 441–460. ISSN 2159-3159.
  40. ^ Lissarague, François (1993). "«Musica e storia», II, 1994". Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi (in Italian). pp. 273–274.
  41. ^ a b Mojsik, Tomasz (2020). "The "Double Orpheus": between Myth and Cult". Mythos. Rivista di Storia delle Religioni (14). doi:10.4000/mythos.1674. ISSN 1972-2516.
  42. ^ Mojsik, Tomasz (2022). Orpheus in Macedonia: Myth, Cult and Ideology. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 93, 137. ISBN 978-1-350-21319-7.
  43. ^ Kerényi, p. 280; Pindar fr. 128c Race (Threnos 3) 11–12.
  44. ^ compare Apollonius Rhodius, 1.23–25
  45. ^ Apollonius Rhodius, 1.23–25
  46. ^ Scholia ad Apollonius Rhodius, 1.23 with Asclepiades as the authority
  47. ^ In Pausanias, 9.30.4, the author claimed that "... There are many untruths believed by the Greeks, one of which is that Orpheus was a son of the Muse Calliope, and not of the daughter of Pierus."
  48. ^ Tzetzes, Chiliades 1.12 line 306
  49. ^ Gantz, p. 725; Pindar, Pythian 4.176–7.
  50. ^ Gantz, p. 725; BNJ 12 F6a = [Scholia on Pindar's Pythian, 4.313a].
  51. ^ Tzetzes, Chiliades 1.12 line 305
  52. ^ William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, Orpheus and Greek Religion (Mythos Books), 1993, ISBN 0-691-02499-5, p. 61 f.: "[…] is a city Dion. Near it is a village called Pimpleia. It was there they say that Orpheus the Kikonian lived."
  53. ^ a b Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books), 1991, ISBN 0-691-01514-7, p. 469: "[…] near the city of Dium is a village called Pimpleia where Orpheus lived."
  54. ^ 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."
  55. ^ Hoopes And Evslin, The Greek Gods, ISBN 0-590-44110-8, ISBN 0-590-44110-8, 1995, p. 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 and taught him to play. And his mother Calliope, the muse presiding over epic poetry, taught him to make verses for singing."
  56. ^ Diodorus Siculus, 4.25.2–4
  57. ^ Pausanias, Corinth, 2.30.1 [2]: "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, and it has one face and one body. It was Alcamenes, 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."
  58. ^ Pausanias, Laconia, 3.14.1,[5]: "[…] 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 Hermione 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."
  59. ^ Pausanias, 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."
  60. ^ Pausanias, Laconia, 3.20.1,[5]: "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."
  61. ^ Diodorus Siculus, 4.25.1–2
  62. ^ Katherine Crawford (2010). The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-521-76989-1.
  63. ^ John Block Friedman (2000-05-01). Orpheus in the Middle Ages. Syracuse University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8156-2825-5.
  64. ^ M. Owen Lee, Virgil as Orpheus: A Study of the Georgics, State University of New York Press, Albany (1996), p. 9.
  65. ^ Symposium 179d
  66. ^ "Attributed to the Painter of London E 497: Bell-krater (24.97.30) – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History – The Metropolitan Museum of Art". metmuseum.org.
  67. ^ "The Georgics of Virgil: Fourth Book". www.sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  68. ^ Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, Penguin Books Ltd., London (1955), Volume 1, Chapter 28, "Orpheus", p. 115.
  69. ^ 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).
  70. ^ a b William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, Orpheus and Greek Religion, ISBN 0-691-02499-5, p. 32
  71. ^ Wilson, N., Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, 2013, ISBN 113678800X, p. 702: "His grave and cult belong not to Thrace but to Pierian Macedonia, northeast of Mount Olympus, a region that the Thracians had once inhabited".
  72. ^ Homer; Bryant, William Cullen (1809). The Iliad of Homer. Ashmead.
  73. ^ Mark P. O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology, p. 279.
  74. ^ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, volume 88, p. 211
  75. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece: Boeotia, 9.30.1. 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.
  76. ^ Pausanias, Boeotia 9.30.1. 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
  77. ^ "Orpheus". The Columbia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  78. ^ Patricia Jane Johnson (2008). Ovid Before Exile: Art and Punishment in the Metamorphoses. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-299-22400-4. "by the Ciconian women".
  79. ^ Ovid, trans. A. S. Kline (2000). Ovid: The Metamorphoses. Book XI.
  80. ^ Heinrich Wölfflin (2013). Drawings of Albrecht Dürer. Courier Dover. pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-0-486-14090-2.
  81. ^ 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."[full citation needed]
  82. ^ Recently[when?] a cave was identified as the oracle of Orpheus nearby the modern village of Antissa; see Harissis H. V. et al. "The Spelios of Antissa; The oracle of Orpheus in Lesvos" Archaiologia kai Technes 2002; 83:68–73 (article in Greek with English abstract)
  83. ^ Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, [1]
  84. ^ Godwin, William (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 46.
  85. ^ Marcele Detienne, The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context, ISBN 0-8018-6954-4, p. 161
  86. ^ Pausanias, Boeotia, 9.30.1 [11] 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.
  87. ^ Pausanias, Boeotia, 9.30.1. 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.
  88. ^ Freeman, Kathleen (1946). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 3. ark:/13960/t9z088h5f.
  89. ^ a b Freeman, Kathleen (1946). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. pp. 4–8. ark:/13960/t9z088h5f.
  90. ^ Plato. The Republic 364c–d.
  91. ^ Moore, p. 56: "the use of eggs and beans was forbidden, for these articles were associated with the worship of the dead".
  92. ^ 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, a reference in the Alcestis of Euripides to certain Thracian tablets which "the voice of Orpheus had inscribed" with pharmaceutical lore. The scholiast, commenting on the passage, says that there exist on Mt. Haemus certain writings of Orpheus on tablets. 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)."
  93. ^ Freeman, Kathleen. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Harvard University Press (1948), p. 1.
  94. ^ Janko, Richard (2006). Tsantsanoglou, K.; Parássoglou, G. M.; Kouremenos, T. (eds.). "The Derveni Papyrus". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Studi e testi per il 'Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini'. 13. Florence: Olschki.
  95. ^ Isherwood, Charles (2007-06-19). "The Power of Memory to Triumph Over Death". The New York Times.
  96. ^ "David Almond wins Guardian children's fiction prize". The Guardian. 2015-11-19. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-11-24.

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