Orpheus and Eurydice

The origins of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth go back at least to the 6th century BCE and likely earlier than that. The earliest extant appearance of the name Orpheus is in a fragment from a work by the Greek poet Ibycus, from around 530 BCE; it translates as “Orpheus famous-of-name.” It is probable that for hundreds of years, there were two versions of the myth in circulation: a version in which Orpheus is successful in his mission to bring Eurydice back from Hades, and a lesser-known tragic version in which he fails. The existence of the former can be ascertained from the poem “Song of Bion,” a tribute to the Greek poet Bion, who flourished around 280 BCE, and other sources, including Euripides’s play, Alcestis (480 BCE). However, the earliest extant versions of the full myth are the tragic ones by Virgil and, about 40 years later, by Ovid, which quickly became canonical. The basic facts of the story were reiterated by Pseudo-Apollodorus, the name given traditionally to the compiler of a compendium of myths in the first or second century CE.

Virgil’s version of the myth reflects the poet’s interest in aligning his work with the political priorities of Roman Emperor Augustus, who ruled from 27 BCE to 14 CE: promoting traditional Roman virtues, such as duty, resilience, and social order. While Virgil was writing the Georgics, Augustus, then known as Octavian, was a member of the ruling triumvirate. He defeated his long-standing rival Marc Antony at the battle of Actium in 31 BCE and within four years attained supreme power.

Augustus took an active interest in Virgil’s work. In 29 BCE, Virgil met Octavian on the latter’s journey to Rome; Virgil had recently finished the Georgics, and he read the poem to the future emperor. According to Servius the Grammarian, a 5th-century commentator on Virgil, Book 4 of the Georgics originally ended with a tribute to Virgil’s friend Cornelius Gallus, Roman poet and prefect of Egypt. After Gallus’s suicide in 26 BCE, however, Augustus requested that Virgil replace the tribute with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The first half of Book 4 of the Georgics sheds light on how Virgil’s typically Roman worldview ties in with the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. The poem features a long and admiring description of the life of bees. Bees are very orderly and follow the rule of law; they all have their allotted duties—some bring up the young, some are sentries, and so on; they are always busy, each with its task, both the elders and the young. They start work at dawn and do not waste any time, and they are also great warriors. They venerate their king and would seek a glorious death in his service. In short, they act like miniature model Romans, dedicated to the smooth functioning of their social unit. Moreover, they do not, Virgil says, fritter away their strength on love, as Orpheus does in the story that Virgil inserts immediately after this account of the bees. Seen in this light, Orpheus is a chaos agent, overvaluing love and the softer side of life; his audacious appeal to the gods and his attempt to cross the inherent boundaries of human life lead to his failure and death. In contrast, underlying the Georgics is the belief that obedience to divine will is one of the highest virtues.

Ovid was a very different kettle of fish. If Virgil was essentially a moralist, Ovid was a storyteller and entertainer, with no interest in endorsing traditional Roman virtues or promoting any religious point of view. Unlike Virgil, Ovid’s relations with Augustus were difficult. Although the Metamorphoses ends with praise of Augustus, many commentators question the sincerity of this final affirmation. While Ovid was still finishing the book, he was expelled from Rome and sent to live in exile in Tomis, a city on the Black Sea. The reason for his expulsion is not known; Ovid claimed it was for an indiscretion rather than a crime. He often applied for a pardon but never received one. He died in exile in 17 CE.

In the Metamorphoses, Ovid’s theme is change—constant, often miraculous transformation. His sensational stories often feature satiric and ironic intent. Ovid inserts himself into his narrative, talking directly to both his characters and his readers. As narrator, his personality is never far from the surface; sometimes he is skeptical, inserting a remark like “it is said” or similar that implies that an aspect of the story he is telling may not actually be true (although it may have an imaginative or fictional reality). Ovid employs more dactyls—a long syllable followed by two short syllables—which supports the mercurial, constantly shifting narrative style and makes his verse move more quickly than Virgil’s. By contrast, Virgil favors spondees—two successive long syllables—which give his verse a more dignified, stately feeling.

Virgil and Ovid’s versions have been the basis for numerous later adaptations of the myth. Sir Orfeo, a medieval narrative poem, has a happy ending, when the king of the fairies, the equivalent of the god Hades, allows Sir Orfeo to take his wife back to the earthly world without imposing any conditions. Other famous adaptations feature their own spin on the story. In Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo (1607), Orpheus is able to enter the underworld only because his music puts to sleep Charon, the boatman who rows the shades of the dead to the underworld, and who has refused to take the still living Orpheus across. Orpheus then rows himself across the river. At the end of the opera, after the tragedy has unfolded, Orpheus ascends with his father Apollo, to the heavens, where he will see Eurydice again in the sun and the stars. In Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), on the way back from Hades, Eurydice complains that Orpheus is being cold to her and she would actually prefer to be dead; in response, he glances back at her, and she dies. However, the god Amor (Love) brings her back to life and the two lovers are reunited. In the 20th century, American dramatist Tennessee Williams had an interest in the myth. In his play Orpheus Descending, a young musician named Val descends to the symbolic hell of a small town in the American south, where a woman called Lady Torrance, the equivalent of Eurydice, is enduring a living death. Williams also wrote “Orpheus Descending,” a poem that appeared in his collection In the Winter of Cities (1956). In this poem, Williams expresses in plain language the inevitable workings of fate. Orpheus’s attempt to bring Eurydice back is doomed to failure: “for you must learn, even you, what we have learned, / that some things are marked by their nature to be not completed / but only longed for and sought for a while and abandoned” (Williams, Tennessee. “Orpheus Descending.” The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams, edited by David Roessel and Nicholas Moschovakis, 2002, p. 15).