A Book of Myths
vanish to leave the hills and valleys dark and cold, the sorrowful
feeling that we cannot understand when, in country places, we hear
music coming from far away, or listen to the plaintive song of the
bird, are things that very specially belong to the story of Orpheus.
In the country of Thrace, surrounded by all the best gifts of the
gods, Orpheus was born. His father was Apollo, the god of music and of
song, his mother the muse Calliope. Apollo gave his little son a lyre,
and himself taught him how to play it. It was not long before all the
wild things in the woods of Thrace crept out from the green trees and
thick undergrowth, and from the holes and caves in the rocks, to
listen to the music that the child's fingers made. The coo of the dove
to his mate, the flute-clear trill of the blackbird, the song of the
lark, the liquid carol of the nightingale--all ceased when the boy
made music. The winds that whispered their secrets to the trees owned
him for their lord, and the proudest trees of the forest bowed their
heads that they might not miss one exquisite sigh that his fingers
drew from the magical strings. Nor man nor beast lived in his day that
he could not sway by the power of his melody. He played a lullaby, and
all things slept. He played a love-lilt, and the flowers sprang up in
full bloom from the cold earth, and the dreaming red rosebud opened
wide her velvet petals, and all the land seemed full of the loving
echoes of the lilt he played. He played a war-march, and, afar off,
the sleeping tyrants of the forest sprang up, wide awake, and bared
their angry teeth, and the untried youths of Thrace ran to beg their
fathers to let them taste battle, while the scarred warriors felt on
their thumbs the sharpness of their sword blades, and smiled, well
content. While he played it would seem as though the very stones and
rocks gained hearts. Nay, the whole heart of the universe became one
great, palpitating, beautiful thing, an instrument from whose
trembling strings was drawn out the music of Orpheus.
He rose to great power, and became a mighty prince of Thrace. Not his
lute alone, but he himself played on the heart of the fair Eurydice
and held it captive. It seemed as though, when they became man and
wife, all happiness must be theirs. But although Hymen, the god of
marriage, himself came to bless them on the day they wed, the omens on
that day were against them. The torch that Hymen carried had no golden
flame, but sent out pungent black smoke that made their eyes water.
They feared they knew not what; but when, soon afterwards, as Eurydice
wandered with the nymphs, her companions, through the blue-shadowed
woods of Thrace, the reason was discovered. A bold shepherd, who did
not know her for a princess, saw Eurydice, and no sooner saw her than
he loved her. He ran after her to proclaim to her his love, and she,
afraid of his wild uncouthness, fled before him. She ran, in her
terror, too swiftly to watch whither she went, and a poisonous snake
that lurked amongst the fern bit the fair white foot that flitted,
like a butterfly, across it. In agonised suffering Eurydice died. Her
spirit went to the land of the Shades, and Orpheus was left
broken-hearted.
The sad winds that blow at night across the sea, the sobbing gales
that tell of wreck and death, the birds that wail in the darkness for
their mates, the sad, soft whisper of the aspen leaves and the leaves
of the heavy clad blue-black cypresses, all now were hushed, for
greater than all, more full of bitter sorrow than any, arose the music
of Orpheus, a long-drawn sob from a broken heart in the Valley of the
Shadow of Death.
Grief came alike to gods and to men as they listened, but no comfort
came to him from the expression of his sorrow. At length, when to bear
his grief longer was impossible for him, Orpheus wandered to Olympus,
and there besought Zeus to give him permission to seek his wife in the
gloomy land of the Shades. Zeus, moved by his anguish, granted the
permission he sought, but solemnly warned him of the terrible perils
of his undertaking.
But the love of Orpheus was too perfect to know any fear; thankfully
he hastened to the dark cave on the side of the promontory of
Taenarus, and soon arrived at the entrance of Hades. Stark and grim
was the three-headed watchdog, Cerberus, which guarded the door, and
with the growls and the furious roaring of a wild beast athirst for
its prey it greeted Orpheus. But Orpheus touched his lute, and the
brute, amazed, sank into silence. And still he played, and the dog
would gently have licked the player's feet, and looked up in his face
with its savage eyes full of the light that we see in the eyes of the
dogs of this earth as they gaze with love at their masters. On, then,
strode Orpheus, playing still, and the melody he drew from his lute
passed before him into the realms of Pluto.
Surely never were heard such strains. They told of perfect, tender
love, of unending longing, of pain too great to end with death. Of all
the beauties of the earth they sang--of the sorrow of the world--of
all the world's desire--of things past--of things to come. And ever,
through the song that the lute sang, there came, like a thread of
silver that is woven in a black velvet pall, a limpid melody. It was
as though a bird sang in the mirk night, and it spoke of peace and of
hope, and of joy that knows no ending.
Into the blackest depths of Hades the sounds sped on their way, and
the hands of Time stood still. From his bitter task of trying to quaff
the stream that ever receded from the parched and burning lips,
Tantalus ceased for a moment. The ceaseless course of Ixion's wheel
was stayed, the vulture's relentless beak no longer tore at the
Titan's liver; Sisyphus gave up his weary task of rolling the stone
and sat on the rock to listen, the Danaides rested from their labour
of drawing water in a sieve. For the first time, the cheeks of the
Furies were wet with tears, and the restless shades that came and went
in the darkness, like dead autumn leaves driven by a winter gale,
stood still to gaze and listen. Before the throne where Pluto and his
queen Proserpine were seated, sable-clad and stern, the relentless
Fates at their feet, Orpheus still played on. And to Proserpine then
came the living remembrance of all the joys of her girlhood by the
blue AEgean Sea in the fair island of Sicily. Again she knew the
fragrance and the beauty of the flowers of spring. Even into Hades the
scent of the violets seemed to come, and fresh in her heart was the
sorrow that had been hers on the day on which the ruthless King of
Darkness tore her from her mother and from all that she held most
dear. Silent she sat beside her frowning, stern-faced lord, but her
eyes grew dim.
When, with a quivering sigh, the music stopped, Orpheus fearlessly
pled his cause. To let him have Eurydice, to give him back his more
than life, to grant that he might lead her with him up to "the light
of Heaven"--that was his prayer.
The eyes of Pluto and Proserpine did not dare to meet, yet with one
accord was their answer given. Eurydice should be given back to him,
but only on one condition. Not until he had reached the light of earth
again was he to turn round and look upon the face for a sight of which
his eyes were tired with longing. Eagerly Orpheus complied, and with a
heart almost breaking with gladness he heard the call for Eurydice and
turned to retrace his way, with the light footfall of the little feet
that he adored making music behind him. Too good a thing it
seemed--too unbelievable a joy. She was there--quite close to him.
Their days of happiness were not ended. His love had won her back,
even from the land of darkness. All that he had not told her of that
love while yet she was on earth he would tell her now. All that he had
failed in before, he would make perfect now. The little limping
foot--how it made his soul overflow with adoring tenderness. So near
she was, he might even touch her were he to stretch back his hand....
And then there came to him a hideous doubt. What if Pluto had played
him false? What if there followed him not Eurydice, but a mocking
shade? As he climbed the steep ascent that led upwards to the light,
his fear grew more cruelly real. Almost he could imagine that her
footsteps had stopped, that when he reached the light he would find
himself left once more to his cruel loneliness. Too overwhelming for
him was the doubt. So nearly there they were that the darkness was no
longer that of night, but as that of evening when the long shadows
fall upon the land, and there seemed no reason for Orpheus to wait.
Swiftly he turned, and found his wife behind him, but only for a
moment she stayed. Her arms were thrown open and Orpheus would fain
have grasped her in his own, but before they could touch each other
Eurydice was borne from him, back into the darkness.
"Farewell!" she said--"Farewell!" and her voice was a sigh of hopeless
grief. In mad desperation Orpheus sought to follow her, but his
attempt was vain. At the brink of the dark, fierce-flooded Acheron the
boat with its boatman, old Charon, lay ready to ferry across to the
further shore those whose future lay in the land of Shades. To him ran
Orpheus, in clamorous anxiety to undo the evil he had wrought. But
Charon angrily repulsed him. There was no place for such as Orpheus in
his ferry-boat. Those only who went, never to return, could find a
passage there. For seven long days and seven longer nights Orpheus
waited beside the river, hoping that Charon would relent, but at last
hope died, and he sought the depths of the forests of Thrace, where
trees and rocks and beasts and birds were all his friends.
He took his lyre again then and played:
"Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice."
Milton.
Day and night he stayed in the shadow of the woodlands, all the sorrow
of his heart expressing itself in the song of his lute. The fiercest
beasts of the forest crawled to his feet and looked up at him with
eyes full of pity. The song of the birds ceased, and when the wind
moaned through the trees they echoed his cry, "Eurydice! Eurydice!"
In the dawning hours it would seem to him that he saw her again,
flitting, a thing of mist and rising sun, across the dimness of the
woods. And when evening came and all things rested, and the night
called out the mystery of the forest, again he would see her. In the
long blue shadows of the trees she would stand--up the woodland paths
she walked, where her little feet fluttered the dry leaves as she
passed. Her face was white as a lily in the moonlight, and ever she
held out her arms to Orpheus:
"At that elm-vista's end I trace,
Dimly thy sad leave-taking face,
Eurydice! Eurydice!
The tremulous leaves repeat to me
Eurydice! Eurydice!"
Lowell.
For Orpheus it was a good day when Jason, chief of the Argonauts,
sought him out to bid him come with the other heroes and aid in the
quest of the Golden Fleece.
"Have I not had enough of toil and of weary wandering far and wide,"
sighed Orpheus. "In vain is the skill of the voice which my goddess
mother gave me; in vain have I sung and laboured; in vain I went down
to the dead, and charmed all the kings of Hades, to win back Eurydice,
my bride. For I won her, my beloved, and lost her again the same day,
and wandered away in my madness even to Egypt and the Libyan sands,
and the isles of all the seas.... While I charmed in vain the hearts
of men, and the savage forest beasts, and the trees, and the lifeless
stones, with my magic harp and song, giving rest, but finding
none."[3]