Orpheus

Orpheus was born in Thrace, a wild and mountainous land north of Greece that the Greeks considered both barbaric and strangely sacred, to the muse Calliope, the eldest and most majestic of the nine Muses, the daughters of Zeus and Memory who inspired poets and musicians, and to Oeagrus, a Thracian king. Some said his true father was Apollo, the god of music and prophecy, whose golden lyre set the rhythm of the cosmos. From his earliest years, Orpheus possessed a gift that no other mortal shared. When he played his lyre, the beasts of the forest gathered around him and lay down in peace, the trees swayed as if dancing, and even the rocks on the mountainside seemed to lean toward the sound. His voice was said to be sweeter than any bird's, and his songs could calm the stormiest sea or stir the most hardened heart. He became the master of the seven-stringed lyre, an instrument whose music was believed to hold the power of harmony itself, and his fame spread across the Greek world and beyond.

Orpheus joined the voyage of the Argonauts, the band of heroes led by Jason who sailed in the ship Argo to claim the Golden Fleece from the distant kingdom of Colchis. When the Argonauts passed the island of the Sirens, the sea-nymphs whose song lured sailors to shipwreck and death on their rocky shores, it was Orpheus who saved them. He played his lyre and sang so loudly and so beautifully that the Sirens' deadly music was drowned out, and the crew rowed past in safety while the Sirens, defeated by a greater song, threw themselves into the sea in despair. On the return journey, Orpheus also helped the Argonauts survive the clashing rocks of the Symplegades, two massive boulders at the mouth of the Black Sea that destroyed any ship that tried to pass between them, by timing his music to the rhythm of the oars and guiding the rowers through the gap. The other heroes wielded swords and spears, but Orpheus wielded sound, and his weapon was no less decisive.

The defining tragedy of Orpheus's life was his love for Eurydice, a beautiful nymph of the woods, one of the Dryads, the spirits of trees and forests who were bound to particular oaks and pines and died if their trees were cut down. On their wedding day, Eurydice was dancing in a meadow with her nymph companions when she stepped upon a snake hidden in the grass. The serpent bit her heel, and she died in Orpheus's arms before the marriage was consummated. Maddened with grief, Orpheus resolved to do what no mortal had ever dared. He descended into the underworld, the dark realm ruled by Hades and his queen Persephone, the goddess of spring who had been abducted by the god of the dead and who spent half the year above ground and half below. Orpheus passed the three-headed guard dog Cerberus, who stood at the gates and devoured any who tried to enter or escape without permission, by playing music so gentle that the beast lay down and slept. He crossed the rivers of the dead, the Styx and the Acheron, whose waters carried the souls of the departed, and he came before the throne of Hades and Persephone.

There, in the darkness where no living light had ever shone, Orpheus played his lyre and sang of his love for Eurydice. His song was so beautiful that the shades of the dead gathered to listen, forgetting their torments. The Furies, the dread goddesses who whipped and pursued the wicked with burning torches and serpents in their hair, wept for the first time in memory. Even Hades, the stern and unmoving king of the dead, felt his heart soften, and Persephone, who knew what it was to be torn from love, begged her husband to grant the bard's request. Hades agreed to release Eurydice on one condition: Orpheus must lead her out of the underworld without looking back at her until they had reached the light of the upper world. Orpheus walked ahead, his heart pounding, his lyre silent, listening for her footsteps behind him. He climbed through the dark passages, passed the sleeping Cerberus, and saw the first glimmer of daylight ahead. But doubt seized him. Was she truly following? Had Hades deceived him? In the moment before they reached the surface, he turned to look. Eurydice was there, pale and beautiful, reaching for him. But the moment his eyes met hers, she was torn back into the darkness, her hand outstretched, her voice calling his name, and the gates of the underworld closed forever. Orpheus had lost her twice.

Orpheus emerged from the underworld alone and broken. He wandered the hills of Thrace, playing songs of mourning so desolate that even the gods turned away in sorrow. He shunned the company of women, and some say he turned his love to young men, teaching them the mysteries of his music and his religion. This rejection of women enraged the Maenads, the frenzied female followers of Dionysus, who roamed the mountains in ecstatic worship, tearing animals apart with their bare hands and drinking wine in wild abandon. They fell upon Orpheus in a Dionysian frenzy, throwing stones and branches at him, but his music was so powerful that the missiles refused to strike him and fell harmlessly at his feet. Finally, in their madness, the Maenads drowned out his song with their own screams and tore his body limb from limb, scattering his pieces across the Thracian mountains. His head, still singing, was thrown into the river Hebrus and carried down to the sea, where it washed ashore on the island of Lesbos and was buried by the locals, who thereafter became the most gifted poets in Greece. His lyre was placed in the sky as a constellation by Zeus, the king of the gods, or by the Muses themselves, so that his music would echo among the stars forever.