Orpheus and Eurydice
The story opens with the death of Eurydice on her wedding day. While walking down the aisle, she is bitten by a snake. As in many other myths and folktales, the snake symbolizes corruption of innocence and the suddenness of death. Snakes really get a bad wrap.
“I longed to be able to accept it, and I do not say I have not tried: Love won.” Orpheus
I found this line particularly moving, “love won.” Since death is a human universal, rejection of death is a common human experience and helps the audience empathizes with Orpheus. Orpheus pleads for the return of his young wife and uses the power of his words and music to sway the gods.
“but, if the fates refuse my wife this kindness, I am determined not to return: you can delight in both our deaths.”
Touched by his song and sentiment, the god of the underworld relents on the condition that he does not look back on the journey to the surface. But as often is the case in these stories, Orpheus cannot follow simple directions and turns back just as they reaches the threshold. Eurydice is swept back to the underworld.
The narrator then poses the question:“what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?” Eurydice is extremely passive. She has no volition or say in any of the proceedings regarding her life and death. I think that this is a reflection of the status of women. I, personally, would have a lot to complain about if my husband pulled a similar stunt. Eyes to the front Orpheus!
Ganymede and Hyacinthus
The last tale had segued into the idolized relationship between men and young boys and here Orpheus sings of the similar relationships between the gods and mortals.
I wanted to read this story because I wanted to know more about Ganymede and the eagle since the eagle made a brief appearance and Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche. I was disappointed that there was very little to this story. In this telling, the great god Jupiter transformed himself into a mighty eagle and abducted Ganymede for whom he lusted. Thereafter, Ganymede remained with Jupiter at his right hand as cupbearer.
In the tale of Hyacinthus, the god Phoebus “loves?” the young Spartan mortal. While competing together in sports such as wrestling and discus, Hyacinthus is mortally injured. His death is compared to the breaking of a bloom from a flower; the head drooping, facing the ground, and dying. Thereafter, Hyancinthus is reincarnated in the spring flowers.
The Death of Hyacinthos, by Jean Broc
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