Orpheus and Eurydice from the Metamorphoses Ovid
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Orpheus and Eurydice from the Metamorphoses Ovid ublius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE-17 CE) was a renowned and sometimes con- Ptroversial poet whose work, along with that of Virgil and Horace, characterizes the “golden age” of Roman poetry. Even though he often infuriated the rather puritanical Emperor Augustus, his poetry proved to be the most prominent Roman mythological inheri- tance of the Medieval West. Medieval writers found a rich source for their own invention in his Metamorphoses, a mock epic with the theme of transformations. In this passage, he describes the tale of Eurydice and Orpheus, and is the ultimate source, together with Virgil’s account, of all subsequent tellings of Nymphs Listening to the Songs of Orpheus, by Charles this archetypal tale. François Jalabert. The story begins just as Hymen, the God of Marriage and Weddings, has departed, after delighted Naiads wandered with the having attended the Nuptials of Orpheus bride, and Eurydice. a serpent struck its venomed tooth in her Veiled in a saffron mantle, through soft ankle—and she died. After the bard the air of Rhodope had mourned, and filled unmeasured, after the strange wedding, the highs Hymen of heaven with the moans of his lament, departed swiftly for Ciconian land; determined also the dark underworld regardless and not listening to the voice should recognize the misery of death, of tuneful Orpheus. Truly Hymen there he dared descend by the Taenarian gate was present during the festivities down to the gloomy Styx. And there of Orpheus and Eurydice, but gave passed through no happy omen, neither hallowed words pale-glimmering phantoms, and the ghosts nor joyful glances; and the torch he held escaped from sepulchres, until he found would only sputter, fill the eyes with smoke, Persephone and Pluto, master-king and cause no blaze while waving. The of shadow realms below: and then began result to strike his tuneful lyre, to which he sang: of that sad wedding, proved more terrible “O deities of this dark world beneath than such foreboding fates. the earth! this shadowy underworld, to While through the grass which Page v all mortals must descend! If it can be allotted years. So I ask of you called lawful, and if you will suffer possession of her few days as a boon. speech But if the fates deny to me this prayer of strict truth (all the winding ways for my true wife, my constant mind of Falsity forbidden) I come not must hold down here because of curiosity me always so that I can not return— to see the glooms of Tartarus and have and you may triumph in the death of no thought to bind or strangle the three two!” necks While he sang all his heart said to the of the Medusan Monster, vile with sound snakes. of his sweet lyre, the bloodless ghosts But I have come, because my darling themselves wife were weeping, and the anxious Tantalus stepped on a viper that sent through her stopped clutching at return-flow of the veins wave, death-poison, cutting off her coming Ixion’s twisting wheel stood wonder- years. bound; “If able, I would bear it, I do not and Tityus’s liver for a while escaped deny my effort—but the god of Love the vultures, and the listening Belides has conquered me—a god so kindly forgot their sieve-like bowls and even you, known O Sisyphus! sat idly on your rock! in all the upper world. We are not sure he can be known so well in this deep Then Fame declared that conquered by world, the song but have good reason to conjecture he of Orpheus, for the first and only time is not unknown here, and if old report the hard cheeks of the fierce Eumenides almost forgotten, that you stole your wife were wet with tears: nor could the royal queen, is not a fiction, Love united you nor he who rules the lower world deny the same as others. By this Place of Fear this huge void and these vast and silent the prayer of Orpheus; so they called to realms, them renew the life-thread of Eurydice. Eurydice, who still was held among the new-arriving shades, and she obeyed “All things are due to you, and though the call by walking to them with slow on earth steps, it happens we may tarry a short while, yet halting from her wound. So Orpheus slowly or swiftly we must go to one then abode; and it will be our final home. received his wife; and Pluto told him he Long and tenaciously you will possess might now ascend from these Avernian unquestioned mastery of the human race. vales Rosicrucian Digest She also shall be yours to rule, when full up to the light, with his Eurydice; No. 1 of age she shall have lived the days of her but, if he turned his eyes to look at her, 2008 Page vi Dying the second time, she could not say a word of censure of her husband’s fault; what had she to complain of—his great love? Her last word spoken was, “Farewell!” which he could barely hear, and with no further sound she fell from him again to Hades. Struck quite senseless by this double death of his dear wife, he was as fixed from motion as the frightened one who saw the triple necks of Cerberus, that dog whose middle neck was chained. The sight filled him with terror he had no escape from, until petrified to stone; or like Olenos, changed to stone, because he fastened on himself the guilt of his wife. O unfortunate Lethaea! Dying Eurydice, Charles-François Lebœuf (Nanteuil) (1822), exhibited at the Salon of 1824. Collection of the Louvre. Photo by Too boastful of your beauty, you and he, Marie-Lan Nguyen. united once in love, are now two stones upon the mountain Ida, moist with dew. the gift of her delivery would be lost. Orpheus implored in vain the ferry man They picked their way in silence up a to help him cross the River Styx again, steep but was denied the very hope of death. and gloomy path of darkness. There Seven days he sat upon Death’s riverbank, remained in squalid misery and without all food— but little more to climb till they would nourished by grief, anxiety, and tears— touch complaining that the Gods of Erebus earth’s surface, when in fear he might were pitiless, at last he wandered back, again until he came to lofty Rhodope lose her, and anxious for another look and Haemus, beaten by the strong north at her, he turned his eyes so he could wind. gaze upon her. Instantly she slipped away. Three times the Sun completed his full He stretched out to her his despairing course arms, to watery Pisces, and in all that time, eager to rescue her, or feel her form, shunning all women, Orpheus still but could hold nothing save the yielding believed air. his love-pledge was forever. So he kept Page vii away from women, though so although their weapons would many grieved, have lost all force, because he took no notice of subjected to the power of Orpheus’s their love. harp, The only friendship he enjoyed the clamorous discord of their box- was given wood pipes, to the young men of Thrace. the blaring of their horns, their tambourines While with his songs, Orpheus, and clapping hands and Bacchana- the bard of Thrace, Statue of Ovid (1887) in Constanta, Romania, lian yells, allured the trees, the savage by Ettore Ferrari animals, with hideous discords drowned his voice and harp. — and even the insensate rocks, to follow him; At last the stones that heard his song no more Ciconian matrons, with their raving breasts fell crimson with the Thracian poet’s blood. concealed in skins of forest animals, Before his life was taken, the maenads from the summit of a hill observed him turned there, their threatening hands upon the many attuning love songs to a sounding harp. birds, One of those women, as her tangled hair which still were charmed by Orpheus as was tossed upon the light breeze shouted, he sang, “See! the serpents, and the company of Here is the poet who has scorned our beasts — love!” fabulous audience of that worshipped Then hurled her spear at the melodious bard. mouth And then they turned on him their of great Apollo’s bard: but the spear’s blood-stained hands: point, and flocked together swiftly, as wild trailing in flight a garland of fresh leaves, birds, made but a harmless bruise and wounded which, by some chance, may see the bird not. of night The weapon of another was a stone, beneath the sun. And as the savage dogs which in the very air was overpowered rush on the doomed stag, loosed some by the true harmony of his voice and bright fore-noon, lyre, on blood-sand of the amphitheatre; and so disabled lay before his feet, they rushed against the bard, with swift as asking pardon for that vain attempt. hurled thyrsi which, adorned with emerald leaves The madness of such warfare then increased. had not till then been used for cruelty. Rosicrucian All moderation is entirely lost, Digest And some threw clods, and others No. 1 and a wild Fury overcomes the right.— branches torn 2008 Page viii from trees; and others threw flint stones bewailed your death; while trees dropped at him, their green leaves, and, that no lack of weapons might mourning for you, as if they tore their restrain hair.