Orpheus (Greek: Ορφεύς; pronounced in English as ['ɔ(ɹ).fi.əs] (ohr'-fee-uhs) or ['ɔ(ɹ).fjuːs] (ohr'-fews)) is a figure from Greek mythology called by
Pindar "the father of songs". His name does not occur in Homer or
Hesiod, but he was known by the time of Ibycus
(c.530 BC).
Orpheus was believed to be one of the chief poets and musicians of antiquity, and the inventor or perfector of the
lyre. With his music and singing, he could charm wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance
and even divert the course of rivers. As one of the pioneers of civilization, he is said to have taught humanity the arts of
medicine, writing and agriculture. Closely connected with religious life, Orpheus was an augur and
seer; practised magical arts, especially astrology; founded or rendered accessible many
important cults, such as those of Apollo and the Thracian
god Dionysus; instituted mystic rites both public and
private; and prescribed initiatory and purificatory rituals. In addition, Pindar describes Orpheus as the harpist and companion
of Jason and the Argonauts.[1]
Etymology
Several etymologies for the name Orpheus have been proposed. A probable suggestion is that it is derived from a
hypothetical PIE verb *orbhao-, "to be deprived", from PIE
*orbh-, "to put asunder, separate". Cognates would include Greek orphe, "darkness", and Greek orphanos,
"fatherless, orphan", from which comes English "orphan" by way of Latin. Orpheus would therefore be semantically close to
goao, "to lament, sing wildly, cast a spell", uniting his seemingly disparate roles as disappointed lover, transgressive
musician and mystery-priest into a single lexical whole. The word "orphic" is defined as mystic, fascinating and entrancing, and,
probably, because of the oracle of Orpheus, "orphic" can also signify "oracular".
Mythology
Early life
Orpheus' father was Oeagrus (Οίαγρος) a Thracian king (or,
according to another version of the story, the god Apollo); his mother was the muse Calliope. While living with his mother and his eight beautiful aunts on
Parnassus, he met Apollo who was courting the laughing
muse Thalia. Apollo became fond of Orpheus and gave him a little golden lyre, and taught him to play it. Orpheus's mother taught him to make verses for singing.
Argonautic expedition
-
Orpheus joined the expedition of the Argonauts. The centaur Chiron had warned the Argonaut leader Jason that only with the aid of Orpheus would they be able to navigate past the Sirens unscathed. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky islands called Sirenum
scopuli and played irresistibly beautiful songs that enticed sailors and their ships to the islands' craggy shoals, where
the ships would be wrecked and the sailors killed by the sirens. However, when Orpheus heard the sirens, he drew his lyre and
played music more beautiful than theirs, drowning out their alluring but deadly song.
Death of Eurydice
The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (also known as
Agriope). While fleeing from Aristaeus (son of Apollo), Eurydice ran into a nest of snakes
which bit her fatally on her legs. Distraught, Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and
Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), 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 he had reached the upper world. In his
anxiety he broke his promise, and Eurydice vanished again from his sight.
The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first introduces the name of
Aristaeus. Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus' visit to the underworld; according to Plato, the infernal gods only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. Ovid
says that Eurydice's death was not caused by fleeing from Aristaeus but by dancing with naiads on
her wedding day.
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. The myth may have
been mistakenly derived from another Orpheus legend in which he travels to Tartarus and charms
the goddess Hecate.
The descent to the Underworld of Orpheus is paralleled in other versions of a worldwide theme: the Japanese myth of
Izanagi and Izanami, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to
the Underworld, and Mayan myth of Ix Chel and
Itzamna. The mytheme of not looking back is reflected in the story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. The warning of not looking back is also
found in the Grimms' folk tale "Hansel and Gretel." 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; the
predecessors of Orpheus.
Death
Albrecht Dürer envisioned the death of Orpheus in this pen and ink drawing, 1494
(Kunsthalle, Hamburg)
According to some versions of the story (notably Ovid's), Orpheus forswore the love of women after the death of Eurydice and
took only youths as his lovers; he was reputed to be the one who introduced pederasty to the Thracians, teaching them to "love the young in the flower of their
youth".
According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus's
lost play Bassarids, Orpheus at the end of his life disdained the worship of all gods save the sun, whom he called
Apollo. One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus
(there are ongoing discussions whether this is Perperikon or Mount Pangaion) to salute his god at dawn, but was torn to death by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron, Dionysus. Here his death is analogous with the death of
Pentheus.
Ovid (Metamorphoses XI) also recounts that the Thracian Maenads, Dionysus' followers, angry for having been spurned by
Orpheus in favor of "tender girls," 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 Maenads tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies. Later,
the story would sometimes be seen from a Christian moralist angle: in Albrecht Dürer's
drawing (illustration, right) the ribbon high in the tree is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran ("Orpheus, the first
sodomite").
His head and lyre, still singing mournful songs, floated down the swift Hebrus to
the Mediterranean shore. There, the winds and waves carried them on to the
Lesbos shore, where the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour
near Antissa; there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo (Life of Apollonius of Tyana, book v.14). The 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 below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. His soul returned to the underworld, where he was re-united at last with
his beloved Eurydice.
Bulgarian archeologists have discovered, near Tatul, an
ancient Thracian tomb that some have described as "the tomb of Orpheus".[2]
Orphic poems and rites
-
A number of Greek religious poems in hexameter were attributed to Orpheus, as they were to
similar miracle-working figures, like Bakis, Musaeus,
Abaris, Aristeas, Epimenides, and the Sybil. Of this vast literature, only two examples survive
whole: a set of hymns composed at some point in the second or third century AD, and an Orphic
Argonautica composed somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries AD. Earlier Orphic literature, which may date back as far
as the sixth century BC, survives only in papyrus fragments or in quotations.
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
(Republic 364c-d). Those who were especially devoted to these ritual and poems
often practiced vegetarianism, abstention from sex, and
refrained from eating eggs and beans — which came to be known as the Orphikos bios, or "Orphic way of life".[3]
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. Fragments of the
poem are quoted making it "the most important new piece of evidence about Greek philosophy and religion to come to light since
the Renaissance"[4]. The papyrus dates to around 340 BC,
during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript.
Orpheus with the lyre and surrounded by beasts,
Museum Christian-Byzantine,
Athens
The historian William Mitford wrote in 1784 that the very earliest form of a higher
and cohesive ancient Greek religion was manifest in the Orphic poems.[5]
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.[6]
Mystery schools
Besides the better known "mystery schools" of Pythagoras and Plato, there were well established "Orphic" mystery schools that purported
to convey esoteric and metaphysical knowledge. Due to societal persecution and
suppression, these were secret schools for the study of the mysteries of the "Inner Nature"
of man and of surrounding nature. By understanding these mysteries, the student attempted to perceive his intimate relationship
with Divinity, and strove through self-discipline and
devotion to become at one with his "Inner God". [7]
Post-classical Orpheus
The Orpheus legend has remained a popular subject for writers, artists, musicians and filmmakers.
Poetry
- In the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, the tale of Orpheus was mixed with Celtic
fairy lore in the Middle English metrical romance Sir Orfeo. In this version, Sir Orfeo
rescues his wife Heurodis from the King of Fairy, whose realm contains both the dead, and people
thought to be dead but merely taken by the fairies. This story lasted long enough to be collected in the Child ballads as King Orfeo (albeit in fragmentary form).
- In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Orpheus along with those of numerous
other "virtuous pagans" in Limbo.
- The play Henry VIII by William
Shakespeare and John Fletcher includes a song sung by a lady about Orpheus. It is
not certain which author wrote the song.[1]
- The Czech-German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, sometimes called the last of the
romantic authors, wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus immediately following the Duino Elegies.
- The English poet John Milton repeatedly made allusions to the figure of Orpheus in his
work, most centrally in "Lycidas" (1637).
- The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote Orpheus and Euridice as an elegy to his
late wife Carol in 2003.
- W. H. Auden wrote a poem called "Orpheus" about the conflicting desires "to be
bewildered and happy or most of all the knowledge of life".
- Orpheus appears as a member of Odysseus's last voyage from Ithaca in Nikos Kazantzakis' epic poem The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel.
Classical music
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been the subject of operas, cantatas, ballets, and other works through the history of western
classical music:
Other music
- Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett composed in
2005 an opera for guitar and orchestra named Metamorpheus on the classical Orpheus myth
- Orpheus is a single by the band Ash from their
album Meltdown
- A modernised version of the myth of Orpheus is told in Nick Cave's song The Lyre Of
Orpheus from the double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of
Orpheus
- Orpheus is a song on David Sylvian's album Secrets of the Beehive; complementarily, a later remaster of the album has the song
Promise (The Cult of Eurydice)
- On his 2007 album Nightmoves, jazz artist Kurt Elling references Orpheus and
Eurydice in his vocalese (lyric written for a previous instrumental solo) of Dexter
Gordon's famous version of Body and Soul
- Several Rufus Wainwright songs reference Orpheus.
- Orpheus in Red Velvet is a song on Marc Almond's album Enchanted
- Orpheus is mentioned in the Wallflowers song "Nearly Beloved"
- "The playmate sings/ Like Orphée in some thunder world" appears as a lyric in Peter Murphy's 1988 "Indigo Eyes" (Orphée, the
French spelling of "Orpheus," is also the title of Jean Cocteau's famous 1950 film, referenced below, which reinterpreted the
Orphic myth in then-contemporary postwar France)
- Orpheus is also mentioned in the Cruxshadows song "Cassandra"
- Eurydice, a lament for the woman of the title, is a song by Sleepthief on their
album The Dawnseeker
- "Hey! Orpheus" is a song on The Make Up's collection of 7" singles entitled "I Want
Some"
- Italian Progressive Rock band La Maschera Di Cera's album Lux Ade contains a
track entitled Orpheus
- Orpheus - The Lowdown is a multimedia collaboration by Peter Blegvad and
Andy Partridge (of XTC), available as a CD in an oversize
package with a lyric book illustrated by rayographs
- The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is the inspiration for the Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia song "Reuben and Cerise"
Drama
- The Tennessee Williams play Orpheus
Descending is a modern retelling of the Orpheus myth set in 1950s America.
- Sarah Ruhl's play Eurydice is an interpretive retelling of the myth of
Orpheus from the point of view of his wife, Eurydice.
- Jean Anouilh's Eurydice (1941) sets the story among a troupe of performers in
1930s France.
- Wildworks' promenade performance Souterrain is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Film
- Orphée, directed by Jean Cocteau
(1949)
- Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), directed by Marcel
Camus (1959), from the play Orfeu da Conceição by Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes; retells the story during the Rio de
Janeiro carnival
- Orfeu, directed by Carlos Diegues
(1999), essentially a remake of Black Orpheus.
- Moulin Rouge!, the film directed by Baz
Luhrmann (2001), is, among other things, a take on the idea of the power of music. It draws on the Orpheus myth via the
operetta Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach, at least according to the writer's/director's DVD commentary.
Novels
- The myth of Orpheus was retold in The Sandman comic books by Neil Gaiman, where he is recast as the son of the titular character.
- It is retold in the Hugo and Nebula-winning
novella, Goat Song by Poul Anderson.
- Russell Hoban's "The Medusa Frequency" alludes heavily
to the Orpheus myth. In fact, the head of Orpheus is a central character, albeit inside another character's mind.
- Thomas Pynchon's novel "Gravity's Rainbow"
uses the Orpheus myth as one structure, with Slothrop as Orpheus and postwar Germany as Hades. There are many references to the
afterlife in Slothrop's "descent" into the continent, the yacht the Anubis being one
example.
- The King Must Die, the first of Mary
Renault's novelizations of the life of Theseus, features a unnamed master-bard who
performs at the court in Troizen. He regales his audience with stories of wide travels, including reference to great stone
structures in Britain. Later, Theseus hears he has been killed in Thrace, and a tomb erected to his honor.
- Salman Rushdie used the Orpheus and Eurydice narrative as a mythic underpinning to
the magical realist novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet (see also the song of the same name recorded by
U2 with lyrics provided by Rushdie).
- In Fred Saberhagen's short story "Stardust", part of his Berserkers collection of science-fiction shorts, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold
through his setting of war-torn galactic future.
- Janette Turner Hospital uses the Orpheus myth, and refers to Orpheus
inspired music by Gluck and Beethoven, in her 2007 novel, Orpheus lost.
- Grace Andreacchi uses the Orpheus myth as the centre of her novel Poetry and Fear (2001).
Orpheus in astronomy
- Further information: Giant impact hypothesis
In planetary science, Orpheus refers to a proto-planet that collided with Earth early in the solar system's history. This
collision led to the birth of Earth's moon that formed after the violent impact because the Earth’s gravity pulled the remnants
of Orpheus into its orbit.
This planetary collision is believed to be of vital importance in the development of life on Earth. Prior to the impact, Earth
was almost completely covered with oceans so only the highest peaks rose above sea level. In addition, the atmosphere of Earth
was very dense and had low levels of oxygen. As a result of Earth’s collision with Orpheus, much of the ocean water was ejected
into space as were a large percentage of the atmospheric gases. These changes made it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we
currently know it.
Spoken-word myths - audio files
| Orpheus myths as told by story tellers |
| 1. Orpheus and the Thracians, read by Timothy Carter, music by Steve Gorn, compiled
by Andrew Calimach |
| Bibliography of reconstruction: Pindar, Pythian Odes, 4.176 (462 BC); Roman marble
bas-relief, copy of a Greek original from the late 5th c. (c. 420 BC); Aristophanes, The
Frogs 1032 (c. 400 BC); Phanocles, Erotes e Kaloi, 15 (3rd c. BC); Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautika, i.2 (c. 250 BC); Apollodorus, Library and Epitome 1.3.2 (140 BC); Diodorus
Siculus, Histories I.23, I.96, III.65, IV.25 (1st c. BC); Conon, Narrations,
45 (50 - 1 BC); Virgil, Georgics, IV.456 (37 - 30 BC);
Horace, Odes, I.12; Ars Poetica 391-407 (23 BC); Ovid, Metamorphoses X.1-85, XI.1-65 (AD 8); Seneca, Hercules
Furens 569 (1st c. AD); Hyginus, Poetica Astronomica II.7 Lyre (2st c.
AD); Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.30.2, 9.30.4, 10.7.2 (AD 143 -
176); Anonymous, The Clementine Homilies, Homily V Chapter XV.-Unnatural Lusts (c. AD 400); Anonymous, Orphic
Argonautica (5th c. AD); Stobaeus, Anthologium (c. AD 450); Second Vatican Mythographer, 44. Orpheus |
Orpheus in Pop-Culture
- In the comic The Sandman, Orpheus appears as the son of
Dream.
- Orpheus appears as the main Protagonist's first usable Persona in the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3.
- In the Academy Award-Winning film Amadeus, Mozart asks which of his colleagues would rather listen to his hairdresser than
Orpheus. Mozart goes on to say that Orpheus has a voice so lofty he sounds as if he shits marble.
- Orpheus is the scoring Achievement name for the eighth mission of Halo 3. This is a reference
to Orpheus traveling to the underworld to rescue Eurydice, as Master Chief traverses the Flood in search of Cortana.
Notes
- ^ Grote, p. 21.
- ^ http://www.ancient-bulgaria.com/2006/08/31/tatul-the-possible-tomb-of-orpheus/
- ^ Moore, p. 56 says that "the use of eggs and beans was forbidden, for these
articles were associated with the worship of the dead".
- ^ Richard Janko, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, (2006) of K. Tsantsanoglou, G.M. Parássoglou, T.
Kouremenos (editors), 2006. The Derveni Papyrus (Florence: Olschki) series "Studi e testi per il "Corpus dei papiri
filosofici greci e latini", vol. 13]).
- ^ Mitford, p.89: "But the very early inhabitants of Greece had a religion far
less degenerated from original purity. To this curious and interesting fact, abundant testimonies remain. They occur in those
poems, of uncertain origin and uncertain date, but unquestionably of great antiquity, which are called the poems of Orpheus or
rather the Orphic poems [particularly in the Hymn to Jupiter, quoted by Aristotle in the seventh chapter of his Treatise on the
World: Ζευς πρωτος γενετο, Ζευς υςατος, x. τ. ε]; and they are found scattered among the writings of the philosophers and
historians."
- ^ 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. 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' (Eurpides, Cyclops 646 = Kern, test. 83).".
- ^ Knoche, Grace F. Mystery Schools Through the
Ages.
References
- Ovid, Metamorphoses X, 1-105; XI, 1-66;
Apollodorus, Bibliotheke I,
iii, 2; ix, 16 & 25; Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica I, 23- 34; IV, 891-909.
- Albertus Bernabé (ed.), Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta. Poetae Epici Graeci. Pars II. Fasc.
1. Bibliotheca Teubneriana, München/Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2004. ISBN
3-598-71707-5. review of this
book
- George Grote, A History of Greece, 1846.
- William Keith Chambers Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion: a Study of the Orphic Movement, 1935.
- William Mitford, The History of Greece, 1784. Cf. v.1, Chapter II,
Religion of the Early Greeks.
- Clifford H. Moore, Religious Thought of the Greeks, 1916.
- Erwin Rohde, Psyche, 1925. cf. Chapter 10, The Orphics.
- William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870,
article on Orpheus, [2]
- The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus (tr. Thomas Taylor), 1896.
[3]
- Martin Litchfield West, The Orphic Poems, 1983. There is a sub-thesis
in this work that early Greek religion was heavily influenced by Central Asian shamanistic practices. One major point of contact
was the ancient Crimean city of Olbia.
- Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Orpheus, a sonnet about his trip to the
underworld.
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