“Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the Mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing”
~ Henry the Eighth, 3rd act, 1st scene.
“Anticipate all farewells...” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, II, xiii.
"They abstained from flesh under the impression that it was impious either to eat it or pollute the altars of the gods with blood; and so there was appearing among our ancestors the kind of life which is called Orphic, and which keeps to everything that has no life and abstains from all living things."
~ Plato, Laws, 6.782c.
The Historical Orpheus
`Ονομακλυτον `Ορφην
, this phrase, that "Famous Orpheus" is the earliest textual appearance of the mysterious
Thracian figure, fossilized into the surviving fragments of the poet
Ibykos, dated to the early 6th c. BC. Reputedly he wandered from the mountain country to the shores of
Hellas just a few generations before
Homer. And four centuries later,
Herodotus in his own well-traveled
Histories, while not mentioning the man, often refers to the practices of other peoples' as being '
Orphic'. The
classical age of Greece, casting its Hellenic light about the Mediterranean world, had a wholly ambivalent relationship with this strange northern cult, one that seemed to descend fully-formed from the then little-known region of Central Europe. Neither
Euripides nor
Plato in their writing knew what to make of this
minstrel demigod and his followers. In the playwright's
Hippolytos (l. 948-54) for example,
Theseus rages against his own errant son for taking up the
Orphic religion, calling him a fool and hypocrite for 'paying honour to the vapourings of wordy volumes'. That play was prize-winning theater around Athens in 428BC; by then Orphic notions were well-diffused.
Aristotle, even less forgiving of breezy religiosity, actually denied Orpheus ever existed. Yet, in the words of one scholar, "who wrote then the body of writing current in the 5th and 4th c. which Plato could quote unhesitatingly and cheerfully as the poems of Orpheus?" (Guthrie, p. 4)
Whoever the man may or may not have been, his poems and teachings inspired many followers during the
Golden Age of
Greece - they took him as a prophet, called themselves Orphics (
Orpheotelestai) and their complex set of rituals, the Orphica. Traces of this cult and its artifacts have been unearthed from the Isle of Wight, dated to late
Roman Britain, and as far back to a ceremonial
Attic vase uncovered at the site of
Gela, in
Thrace, ca. 5th c. BC, in addition to dozens of finds around Italy, Crete and the Aegean shores. Another reference to the cult and its beliefs is captured by
Euripides in his
Alcestis, where the
Greek chorus laments they have no power to sway the Fates, 'no charm on Thracian tablets which tuneful Orpheus carved out.' Orpheus was believed to have left his laws carved into tablets (
sanides) atop a peak in his homeland.
The beliefs of his followers are now difficult to reconstruct -
Φαρμακα, επωδαι
, their charms and incantations. Certainly an element of natural harmony, love of song and dance, and belief in an afterlife were pivotal elements.
Plato (above) and
Aristophanes, in his
The Frogs (ln. 1032) both take note of an emphasis seemingly on a
vegan-like diet.
Apollonius of Rhodes (ca. 240 BC) asserts these restrictions against flesh-eating extend back to Orpheus' earliest appearance, when it was actually his role as an enlightened
Bronze Age shaman, who forbid the early tribes of the region from practicing
cannibalism.
Horace, to a degree, backs up this assertion : "When men lived wild, a spokesman of the gods / The sacred Orpheus, scared them from their foul / And murderous ways; and so the legend says / Ravening lions and tigers Orpheus tamed."
Had I the lips of Orpheus and his melody
to charm the maiden daughter of Demeter and
her lord, and by singing win you back from death,
I would have gone beneath the earth, and not the hound of
Pluto could have stayed me, nor the ferryman of ghosts,
Charon at his oar. I would have brought you back.
~ Euripides, Alcestis (written 438 BC), ll. 357-362.
They say that with the music of his voice
he enchanted stubborn mountain rocks and rushing streams.
And testifying still to the magic of his song,
there are wild oaks growing at Zone on the coast of Thrace,
which he lured down from the Pieria with his lyre,
rank upon rank of them,
like soldiers on the march.
~ Apollonius of Rhodes, from The Voyage of Argo (written 250 BC)
The Early Orpheus
Orpheus' birth is barely sketched in most sources, though his parentage is well established: he is the son of the Muse
Calliope and the
Thracian river-god, Oiagros. As in all the Greek pantheon, Orpheus parent's are significant contributors to what he himself represents.
Calliope is the inspiring Spirit of Music, while
Oiagros, as a regional figure, represents not only the mysterious wilds of the region, but also sylvan, natural power. These two elements are thus fused into the Son to form a semi-mystic wanderer figure whose fame spread across all the known world. He was said to have been inducted to the mysteries of
Rhea by
the Dactyls and taught song by the sage
Linus.
His first major outing was as one of
Jason and the Argonauts, though as an action figure he tends to a back seat to the more
Spartan, macho heroes that fill out the questing party. He seems, in the classic version of the story, only to be along to save the musclemen of the Argo from drowning themselves under the enchantment of
the Sirens. However, there is an obscure and anonymous Orphic
Argonautica in which he himself is the poet, relating the tale after the fact (prose trans. G. Dottin, 1930; verse trans. J.R. Bacon). In this version, obviously, he gets a little more authority than just a lyre-strumming femme, and instead becomes the party's expert on all mystical, religious, prophetical and sacrificial matters.
"When Orpheus descends to Eurydice, art is the power that causes the night to open."
~ Maurice Blanchot, The Gaze of Orpheus, 1955.
The Tragic Orpheus
All mythic origins and wanderings aside, it is the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice which most recall. The details of the tale have inspired artists and poets, from early Roman sculptors to
Enlightenment painters.
Rainer Maria Rilke composed a whole book on the theme,
Monteverdi and
Haydn set it to music,
Jean Cocteau filmed it. The attraction to the tale's circumstances are clearly underpinned by its morbid, even fatalistic romanticism, which explains a good deal of its poetical cache. Artist finds beautiful fan, marries her, she dies, he tries to resurrect her through his art, fails and then spends the rest of his life trying to redeem her memory through song.
To the Orphic followers, it was this tale more than any precepts or laws that transformed a
musician into a
Savior: for here was a semi-diving figure willing to descend to the shadowy world of the dead, thwart the secrets of Hades, melt the cold hearts of the judging Gods below, and might actually be able to intercede on behalf of your lost, mortal soul, if he loved you enough. This was radically inspiring material in the oft brutal and wholly indifferent
Greek pantheon; you were more likely to be swindled, ambushed, blinded or raped by most of the other
Olympian figures. Here, instead, was a supernatural hero with
Mercy.
Orpheus didn't need to play the lyre very long when he returned from
Colchis, victorious with the other Argonauts on their quest for the
Golden Fleece, when he caught the eye of the
dryad Eurydice. They courted, he wooed, she swooned, and a wedding day was quickly set. However, so beautiful was she that
Aristaeus, the bee-keeper and hunter of
Tempe, was overcome with lust and chased the new bride, perilously close to a poisonous snake. She was bitten, dies, Orpheus arrives at her side too late even to speak to her and goes near mad with grief.
1
Ipse cava solans aegrum testudine amorem
te, dulcis coniunx, te solo in litore secum,
te veniente die, te decedente canebat.
~ Virgil, Georgics, IV, 464-6.
Left alone then, he plays to ease his pain, lyre and voice sing to his wife, on the lonely shore, as the sun goes up and still as it goes down. He hatches a plan, returns to his darkened homeland in tears, wanders into the northern caves of its furthest peaks, and gains entrance to the cold depths of
Hades, where
Pluto and his dark Lady hold court over the souls of the dead. He tricks the guardians of the underworld, first boatman
Charon, then beastly
Cerebus, and by his art gains audience with Powers Below. Again, with musical charms, Orpheus warms that cold cavern, and even the icy-cold of all those dead souls are moved and relived for a brief spell. His lyre and song weave a powerful spell:
“…I came
for my wife’s sake, whose brightest years were taken
by a chance snakebite. I wanted to be able
to bear this, and I have tried. But Love has conquered.
This god is famous in the world above,
But here, I do not know…
By these Halls
All full of fear, by this terrible delirium,
By this vast Kingdom’s silences, I beg you,
Weave over Eurydice’s life, light put out too soon…
I am asking only
A loan, not a gift. If fate denies us
This favor for my wife, one thing is sure:
I do not want to go back either; triumph, then,
in the death of two.”
~Ovid, Metamorphoses, x, 22 – 42.
In answer, the throne of Hades abates - Eurydice may return to the surface and leave the vaults of
Tartarus, but only if the poet agrees not to look upon his wife until they both again under the light of day. And so the reunited couple set on, wife following behind. On their way to the surface though, Orpheus stops his joyful singing to
Eurydice – who he cannot hear, see or even sense. He can see the mouth of the tunnel before him, but has a sudden wave of doubt, that the gods have duped him and are laughing in their thrones.
cum subita incatum dementia cepit amentem,
ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes:
restitit, Euryducenque suam iam luce sub ipsa
immemor heu! victusque animi respexit.
~ Virgil, ibid., 488-91.
A sudden madness took him, the heedless lover, surely pardonable if the Lords Below knew any
clemency: he stopped and by the dim light ahead, forgetting his vow, reason overcome, he looked back toward dear
Eurydice.
illa “quis et me” inquit “miseram et te peridit, Orpheu,
quis tantus furor? en iterum cruelelia retro
fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus.
iamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte
invalidasque tibitendens, heu non tua, palmas…”
~Virgil, ibid., 494-8.
“What folly”,
Eurydice cries, receding back into the darkness, “we are both destroyed, Orpheus. Again the cruel Fates recall me,
sleep of Death drowns my swimming eyes. Farewell! I am swept back to shadow, my powerless hands reach back, alas never yours to have.” And, as
Ovid captures the horror of the moment, “Was it he, or she, reaching out arms and trying /
To hold or to be held, and clasping nothing / But empty air?” (
Metamorphoses, x, 58-60)
Orpheus Silenced
That moment is the poetical flashpoint I think behind so many artists’ inspiration over the ages, particularly the romantics in the crowd. The medieval schoolmen used to employ Orpheus as a precursor to the
Messiah, especially in the parallel aspects of a
descent into Hell. But what is most telling is that in almost every version of the tale, the stricken bard is then condemned to live on. Orpheus is numb with grief and self-loathing and rejects all comfort at this point. He will no longer sing or dance, rejects his mother's efforts to console him, even ignores his own followers in
Thracia. He will not even sacrifice to the gods, and most notably
Dionysus takes offense, and his bacchanalian women converge in droves upon the poet. He ignores their pleas and taunts, until they shriek with anger. In the end, torn limb from limb by
the Maenads: “…tum quoque mamorea caput a cervice revulsum / gurgite cum medio portans Hebrus / volveret, Eurydicem vox ipsa et frigida lingua.” (Virgil, ibid., 523-5) His head floats down the
Hebrus, out to sea, and to the isle of
Lesbos. It is retrieved by his priests and placed in a temple at
Antissa, where it delivered prophecies until Apollo descended from
Mount Olympus and asked the unfortunate soul to stop. Thus is Orpheus finally silenced, likely coinciding with his waning popularity as a cult figure after Alexander’s expansion of the
Hellenic kingdoms, and the increasingly militant and scientific strain of thought pursued by the Greek elite and intelligentsia in response.
1 This is all very well rendered, if rather revised, by
Neil Gaiman in "The Song of Orpheus",
The Sandman, special No. 1, 1991 : in which Orpheus is actually taken to be the son of the Dream King. It begins with the morning of the wedding day, features the descent to
Tartarus, and ends with his severed head on a beach begging for
Morpheus to kill him. Instead, the Sandman walks away, leaving him in immortal but bodiless grief. Until the end of the
Brief Lives run, that is, issue 49, two years later.
Sources:
W.K.C. Guthrie,
Orpheus and Greek Religion : A Study of the Orphic Movement (NY: Norton, 1967); J.B. Friedman,
Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Harvard, 1970);
Orpheus: The Metamorphosis of A Myth (Toronto, 1982); E. Flaum, "Orpheus" from the
Encyclopedia of Mythology : Gods, Heroes and Legends of the Greeks and Romans (NY: 1993), p. 123; Benet, "Orpheus" from
The Reader's Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. vol. 2 (NY: 1965), pp. 743-4; H.H. Scullard,
Shorter Atlas of the Classical World (NY: Dutton, 1962); “Orphika: The Ancient Mystery Religions” - http://www.kristi.ca/orphika/ - last accessed Feb, 8, 2003.