And the English poem is the only known ex-
ample of a medieval romance which afterwards inspired a popular
ballad.
ample of a medieval romance which afterwards inspired a popular
ballad.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
In
actual cases of snake bite, the poison is fatal only after a period of at
least a quarter of an hour, and usually much longer. But in the myth
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
of Hesperie, death followed almost immediately. The nymph expired as
Daedalion seized her in his arms. Vergil seemed to imagine death as
equally rapid in the case of Eurydice.
Her companions, the Dryads, lamented her, and all Thrace joined
in the mourning. Orpheus first endeavored to dispel his grief hy playing
the lyre and singing all day on the lonely shore. Then he descended into
Hades and appealed to the king of that forbidding realm.
Without attempting a clear and consistent account of the Lower
World, Vergil noted many localities associated with its mystery and
dread. As Orpheus uttered his plea, the souls of the departed gathered
in a multitude to listen, Tartarus opened, the Furies with their snakes
and Cerberus with his three heads remained open-mouthed in wonder,
and Ixion's wheel was motionless in the wind. Vergil did not mention the
purport of the song or state the condition imposed on Orpheus. He indi-
cated that Proserpina offered the terms and Pluto consented to them.
Orpheus then led Eurydice away. Vergil spoke of their path as taking
them up a steep ascent to Lake Avernus, a few miles from his own home
at Naples.
At the last moment Orpheus paused and in pardonable madness
looked back. In the Cvlex, Vergil had spoken of him as impatient to
embrace Eurydice, but in the Georgics he left the motive indefinite. Three
times, he said, a crash was heard in the pools of Avernus. Eurydice re-
proached Orpheus for destroying the happiness of both and spoke of
being overcome with sleep. As Orpheus tried to embrace her and longed
to speak, she escaped his grasp and vanished. Vergil appears to have
imagined that her light spirit fell backwards into the air and floated
down to the shores of the River Styx. He mentioned her as drifting
away, pale and cold in Charon's barge. Vergil noted that Orpheus tried
to follow her but that Charon would not convey him a second time over
the River Styx.
Orpheus, returning to Thrace, continued in mourning for Eurydice.
Eventually he became a god and punished Aristaeus with loss of his bees.
Vergil seemed to imply that Orpheus became a deity of the Lower World
and rejoined his lost wife, for he noted that, when Aristaeus had offered
reparation, the spirit of Eurydice was appeased.
Of all versions of the tragic story Vergil's was the most beautiful.
By Ovid's time it had become famous. In retelling the same tale Ovid
could not hope to equal his great predecessor, but he was sure to invite
comparison. His purpose was to make the new version different, to re-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
tain the chief incidents, but continually to vary details. Although he
followed Vergil in some respects, especially in his vague allusion to local-
ities, he continually showed his ability to move on different ground --
to omit circumstances included by Vergil and to introduce new circum-
stances of his own. A reader might prefer the version of the Georgics,
but he would be glad to supplement it with the account of Ovid.
Since tradition usually had regarded Aristaeus as the father of
Actaeon (Bk. 3), considerations of time made it necessary for Ovid to
omit his part in the tale. Ovid spoke of Eurydice as walking with some
companions along the grassy river bank. Vergil had called these com-
panions tree nymphs (Dryads), but Ovid imagined them more appro-
priately as water nymphs (Naiads). With the Alexandrian author,
Ovid agreed that by mere inadvertence, Eurydice trod on a hidden snake.
This departure from Vergil gave him the further advantage that later
he could tell a different story of Hesperie. According to Ovid, the ser-
pent bit Eurydice in the heel. Ovid indicated only the mourning of
Orpheus.
After mentioning a descent at Taenerus, he spoke of Orpheus as
traversing the region of ghosts who had received burial and as coming
to Proserpina and Pluto. Ovid gave the words of the song. He seems to
have invented the ideas, aided by some details in Vergil's Aeneid. Vergil
had suggested that one reason for the descent of Aeneas into Hades had
been that the gods wanted to have him see the realms of the dead. Vergil
had shown the guide, Sibylla, disclaiming any intention to carry off
Cerberus, after the manner of Hercules (cf. Bk. 7). Ovid showed Orpheus
declaring that he came neither to see the realm of Tartarus nor to cap-
ture Cerberus. He came because his wife had died prematurely from the
bite of a viper. Although he had endeavored to bear the loss, he had
been overcome by Love, a god famous not only in the world of sunlight
but apparently in Hades also, for Love was said to have caused the mar-
riage of Pluto and Proserpina. Here Ovid seemed to recall his own
version of the tale (Bk. 5).
Orpheus urged the infernal deities to unravel the fate of Eurydice,
alluding to a famous belief that patterns of human life are woven by the
Fates (cf. Arachne, Bk. 6). Vergil in his Aeneid had associated Chaos
with the Lower World. Accordingly, Ovid showed Orpheus appealing
to Proserpina and Pluto in the name of these fearful places, of huge
Chaos, and the silence of the vast kingdom. An invocation of this kind
would be impressive for the reader but unlikely to persuade the infernal
deities.
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
Orpheus proceeded to another idea. It is the destiny of every
mortal, he declared, to spend only a short life above and then to descend
into Hades for the rest of eternity. Through all this length of time he
is destined to be a subject of Pluto and Proserpina. In the natural
course of events Eurydice soon would finish her allotted years on earth
and return to this lower realm. Until then, he desired her as a favor.
But he feared lest a matter of this kind should be under the superior
jurisdiction of the Fates. A similar idea, that only the Fates could
make a human being older or younger than his appointed age, Ovid had
used in the tale of Iolaiis (Bk. 9). Should the Fates refuse to give up
Eurydice, Orpheus continued, he himself would remain in Hades.
Vergil had spoken of the song as arousing wonder throughout the
Lower World. Ovid thought of it as arousing pity. The ghosts and even
the Furies wept. Vergil had mentioned the song's affording relief to
Ixion. Following Vergil's suggestion, other Roman poets had elaborated
the idea that on some occasion there was temporary relief for the cele-
brated criminals of Hades. Horace declared in an ode that Mercury
with his lyre tamed Cerberus, made Ixion and Tityus smile in their
anguish, and caused the Danaids joleave their urns unfilled. In another
ode, he observed that after Sapphoand Alcaeus had gone down to the
Lower World, they often warbled laments to the accompaniment of the
lyre. Their song calmed Cerberus and the snakes of the Furies, and they
beguiled Prometheus and Tantalus fromVsuffering and Orion from hunt-
ing. Propertius described Cornelia, the wife of his patron, as praying
that, while she was being judged in Hades, general peace might prevail:
that Furies might stand idle and Sisyphus be freed from his boulder,
the wheel of Ixion might be silent, and water be caught by Tantalus, and
that Cerbeyus might refrain from attacking any shade.
Remembering all these passages but especially those of Horace,
Ovid gave a full enumeration. He suited the detail to his own purpose.
While Orpheus lamented to the accompaniment of the lyre, he said,
Tantalus refrained from catching at the water, the wheel of Ixion
stopped in amazement, the vulture no longer fed on Tityus, the Danaids
rested from their urns, Sisyphus remained seated on his boulder, and the
cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. In this description Ovid fol-
lowed the usual idea that Tartarus and its famous criminals were always
visible from the rest of Hades. Vergil both in the Georgics and in the
Aeneid had thought of Tartarus as shut off by a high wall and gate.
Ovid noted, as one effect of Orpheus, how the Danaids were relieved
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
from their futile labor of carrying water in urns full of holes. His idea
was in strange contrast with the older conception of this punishment.
According to early Greek vase paintings, the task was assigned to those
-- both men and women -- who had failed to become initiated into the
Orphic rites of Bacchus. It had no relation to the Danaids. This idea
was repeated in a painting of Polygnotus and in a dialogue of Plato.
And Plato in his Gorgias may have alluded to it, when he observed that
wisdom in thoughtless minds is like water in a sieve. It would have been
strange for Orpheus to relieve those who were punished for disregard of
his teaching.
According to the older view, the Danaids were not guilty of any
crime. Aeschylus in his Suppliants appears to have exonerated them
because they killed husbands who were forced on them. Early tradition
spoke of their becoming nymphs associated with wells. But at the end
of the fourth century B. C. a dialogue mistakenly attributed to Plato
described them as guilty of murder and assigned to them the traditional
punishment of carrying urns in Hades. The new idea became very pop-
ular, and Ovid followed it in his tale of Orpheus.
The Queen and King of Hades, he said, could not refuse the singer's
request. Presumably they could not resist the persuasion of his appeal.
They summoned Eurydice from among the newly arrived shades. She
came slowly, because she still was lame from the wound. This pathetic
detail was in accord with a world-wide belief of primitive men that an
injury which occurs to the body of a dead person will continue to afflict
the spirit. Vergil in his Aeneid had given the belief prominence when he
described the shade of Dei'phobus as appearing with an extremely muti-
lated face. But the idea that Eurydice suffered from lameness was not in
harmony with Ovid's later account of her following Orpheus up a diffi-
cult path to the world above. Ovid stated the condition that Orpheus
was not to look back at his wife until they had passed beyond the realm
of Hades.
Then, following the implication of Vergil, he noted clearly the cir-
cumstance of the path's leading them up a steep slope to Avernus. Ovid
left no doubt as to the reason why his hero forgot the warning. Orpheus
wanted to reassure himself that Eurydice was following. This idea seems
to have been original with Ovid. As Eurydice glided away towards the
depths, Ovid continued, Orpheus tried vainly to hold her. Ovid recalled
Vergil's statement that, when Aeneas attempted to hold the departing
shade of Creiisa, he embraced only yielding air. He mentioned a similar
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
experience of Orpheus. Vergil had shown Eurydice complaining to her
husband. But Ovid declared that she could not complain of his loving
her and that she merely uttered the word "farewell", which hardly
reached his ears. Ovid gave the impression that she drifted back all the
way to her former place in Hades.
On losing his wife a second time, Ovid continued, Orpheus resembled
a man who had been turned into stone. Ovid likened him first to a name-
less man, who, seeing Hercules drag forth Cerberus, was petrified with
terror, and then to Olenus and Lethaea, who became two stones on the
Mt. Ida near Troy. Ovid added that Lethaea was transformed for boast-
ing over much of her own beauty and that Olenus, who was innocent of
the offence, volunteered to share the fate of his beloved. Ovid implied
that his Roman audience was familiar with both stories. We know them
only from him. By alluding to these tales, he was able to give his account
the needed metamorphosis, but at the cost of diverting the reader's atten-
tion unduly from Orpheus.
Following Vergil, Ovid noted that Charon refused to convey Or-
pheus a second time over the River Styx. Ovid invented the idea that
Orpheus remained seven days on the bank, squalid and fasting. And, as
in the case of the psalmist and of Clytie (Bk. 4), tears were his only
nourishment. At last Orpheus returned, lamenting, to his native coun-
try-
During the later Roman period Seneca made a rather long allu-
sion to Orpheus in his Hercules on Mt. Oeta, Hyginus retold the tale
briefly in his Astronomy, and Boethius recalled a few circumstances in
order to point the moral that one must not look back at worldly joys,
while ascending to heaven. On the whole, these authors followed either
Greek versions of the tale or the account in Vergil's Georgics. But Sen-
eca noted Ovid's idea that Pluto could not resist the plea of Orpheus and
showed Pluto declaring himself overcome. Claudian recalled Ovid, as
he told how the sufferers in Hades were relieved at the arrival of Proser-
pina.
With the fall of Rome, Ovid's narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice
became the only full account which remained accessible. It was well
known and exceedingly popular with medieval authors. Probably it en-
couraged even the anonymous account of a French poet who followed
Boethius. This author told how a fiend guided Orpheus down to the
Lower World and on the way back caused him to turn by making a sud-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
den uproar behind him. Undoubtedly Ovid's narrative contributed to
the work of many authors who relied chiefly on earlier medieval versions.
Both the Flamenca and the Romance of the Seven Sages alluded
to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Petrarch referred to it in his
double sestina and in his Triumph of Love. In an ode to Laura, he re-
called the accident of treading on the snake. Nicholas Trivet recorded
the tale of Eurydice in his Chronicle, inspiring later the Scottish poeti-
cal version of Henryson. And Guillaume de Machaut retold the myth
in his Comfort d'Ami.
Meanwhile the Bretons had made over the classic story into an
elaborate Celtic fairy tale. The chief circumstances of their version
were as follows. Orpheus and Eurydice were king and queen of Thrace.
One day, after the queen had appeared to be a long time asleep in her
garden, she awoke and acted as if she were in a frenzy. Orpheus eventu-
ally learned from her that a king of fairy land, with a company of
knights and ladies, had carried her off to his castle and had brought her
back, with the assurance that on the morrow he would take her again
and forever. Although King Orpheus appointed many knights to pre-
vent the abduction, the queen vanished from among them. After arrang-
ing the affairs of his kingdom, Orpheus withdrew into the forest, taking
only his haxp. For ten years he lived a wretched life but often en-
thralled the wild birds and beasts with his music. At last he saw Eury-
dice with some other ladies, and, following them, at last gained admit-
tance to the court of fairy land. By his music he so delighted both king
and queen that the king granted him in advance any reward that he
might ask. Orpheus begged for the return of Eurydice, and the king con-
sented. After further adventures Orpheus and Eurydice regained their
throne and lived happily to the end of their days.
In this lay, more than in any other medieval version of a classic
tale, the ancient theme was permeated with the lore of Celtic fairy land.
The lay of Orpheus appeared at least as early as the middle of the twelfth
century and was mentioned by Marie de France. It inspired three very
popular medieval romances -- the first in French, the second in English,
and the third in Italian.
And the English poem is the only known ex-
ample of a medieval romance which afterwards inspired a popular
ballad. *
With the coming of the Renaissance, Vergil's treatments of the
*The French and the Italian romances were called Sir Orfeo. The English ro-
mance was called, in one version, Kyng Orfew and, in another version Orpheo and
Heurodis.
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
theme became accessible. His Cvlex probably suggested to Spenser the
idea that Scudamour, rescuing Amoret from the Temple of Venus was
threatened by enemies, as Orpheus recovering Eurydice was threatened
by Cerberus. The Georgics influenced many authors, notably Ariosto in
his drama Orpheus and Aristaeus, and Landor in a narrative poem.
But Ovid's version continued to be the most accessible and the best
known, and almost always it contributed at least a few details to the
modern author.
Three leading poets retold the familiar tale: Lope de Vega in his
play, The Constant Husband, Phineas Fletcher in The Purple Island,
and Pope in the Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. Goethe planned to introduce
Orpheus in a scene where Faust was to visit Proserpina and obtain Helen
of Troy, but he left the scene unwritten. Other poets treated the story
in a new form. William King, writing in the first years of the eighteenth
century, presented Ovid's tale as a clever burlesque. Lewis Morris in his
Epic of Hades imagined that Eurydice repeatedly called Orpheus by
name and so led him to forget the warning. Brookes More gave a
similar version in his Orpheus and Eurydice.
A number of modern authors alluded to the story as a whole.
Herrera and Swinburne referred to it at some length in sonnets. Spenser
mentioned the tale briefly both in his Ruins of Time and in his Epitha-
lamion. In his Daphnaida he confused the descent of Orpheus for Eu-
rydice, with the quest of Ceres for Proserpina. Milton, speaking of his
Paradise Lost declared,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent and up to reascend;
Though hard and rare.
Modern poets often recalled only one part of the tale. In a Hymn
to Love, Spenser referred to the descent into Hades, as evidence that
Love can make his servants heedless of danger. The eloquent pleading
of Orpheus repeatedly interested Milton. In a Latin poem to his father
Milton declared that it was the song of Orpheus, not the music of his
lyre, which made the plea effective. In 11 Penseroso, Milton averred
that Orpheus
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
Philip Freneau treated the incident of the plea in his Prayer of Orpheus.
Tennyson-Turner alluded to the circumstance that Orpheus relieved the
penance of Hades. Milton observed in L'Allegro that Orpheus failed in
the quest, and Lowell presented the idea as an allegory of youth, which
we soon lose and never quite regain. Fielding spoke of Tom Jones as
leading Mrs. Waters to safety and as looking back at her, unwisely, yet
with better fortune than Orpheus. Browning described Eurydice as re-
calling with joy her lover's unforgettable look.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice attracted a great number of
modern artists. Both hero and heroine appeared in two medallions by
Luca Signorelli and in paintings by Giorgione, Rubens, Demont, Potter,
and Beyschlag. G. F. Watts and Frederick Leighton pictured the inci-
dent of the hero's looking back at his wife. Orpheus appeared separately
in paintings by Caravaggio, Podesta, Gerard de Lairesse, Regnault,
Deuilly, Restout, and Loefftz, and in a painting which decorates the
Town Hall of Dantzig. And Orpheus was the theme of a masterpiece
by Moreau. Poussin showed the hero inquiring his way to Hades,
Bandinelli and Peinte pictured his encounter with Cerberus, and
Verlet portrayed his grief after the fatal mistake. Ricketts, Crawford,
and Swan treated Orpheus in sculpture. Still others took a special in-
terest in Eurydice. Corot painted her just after she suffered the fatal
bite, and both de Medina and Legendre-Heral treated her as a theme for
sculpture.
The story became very prominent also in the history of music. It
inspired important early operas by Peri, Monteverdi, and Gliick, and
the popular comic opera by Offenbach. It suggested also a fragmentary
opera by Haydn, which often was adapted to other forms of music.
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? ORPHEUS THE MINSTREL
Okpheus the Minstrel
When Ovid had recounted the loss of Eurydice, he proceeded to
later events in the story of Orpheus. Both Phanocles and Vergil had
given some account of them. They agreed that Orpheus avoided the
society of all other women and that in time he offended the women of
Thrace. They differed as to the nature of the offence. According to
Phanocles, Orpheus taught others to neglect women. Orpheus gave his
attention to an attractive boy, Calais son of Boreas, and by his example
led the Thracians in general to prefer boys. According to Vergil, Or-
pheus offended merely by indifference of his own. For seven months he
continued to mourn Eurydice, and his grief for her made him heedless
of all others. In fact the period of mourning ended only with his death.
Ovid took suggestions both from Phanocles and from Vergil. With
Phanocles he agreed that Orpheus by his example led the Thracians to
prefer boys. But he did not mention Calais. Ovid imagined further that
Orpheus was comforted sufficiently to think of still other matters, and
this allowed him to introduce many tales which otherwise had no rela-
tion to the sequence of his poem. Ovid noted the passage of three years
after the loss of Eurydice, observing that three times the sun had en-
tered the constellation of the Fishes -- the time just before the spring
equinox. With Vergil, Ovid agreed that Orpheus offended the Thracian
women by indifference of his own. He added that some of them made
overtures and were repulsed.
Both Phanocles and Vergil had referred to Orpheus as in the habit
of singing among wild surroundings. According to Phanocles, he used
to sit in the forest and sing of Calais. According to Vergil, he sang of
his lost Eurydice, either by the cold headwaters of the river Strymon or
northwards in the region of the Don and the Ural Mountains, and the
beauty of his lament softened tigers and caused oak trees to follow him. *
Ovid saw a chance to profit by the tradition of Orpheus and the super-
natural power of his music.
Since early times the Greeks had regarded Orpheus as the pioneer
*In the time of Orpheus, tigers appear to have been absent from any country that
Orpheus is supposed to have visited, and at the close of the fifth century B. C. , Xeno-
phon, telling of his army's return from Persia through Armenia, made no allusion to
tigers. But afterwards they migrated westwards into the region of the Caucasus
Mountains, and their presence often was mentioned by Roman poets. This fact may
have led Vergil to imagine that Orpheus found them in the adjacent region of the
Don.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
of culture in Thrace and even in all parts of the Greek world. Some
authors mentioned his teaching religion. Euripides in the Rhesus cred-
ited him with establishing the rites of Bacchus. Apollonius told of his
instructing the Argonauts in the worship of Apollo. Others mentioned
his improving the daily life of the people. In the Alcestis, Euripides
declared that Orpheus first recorded the precepts of medicine. Aris-
tophanes in the Frogs and Horace in the Art of Poetry observed that he
taught the Thracians to avoid bloodshed and to prepare food in a
civilized manner.
Even apart from the tale of Eurydice, Orpheus continually was
described as having supernatural power in music. Horace thought this
idea merely represented in a figurative way the persuasiveness of his
teaching. But most authors took the idea literally. They considered his
power with music as at least a very important element in his civilizing
influence. Greek artists pictured Orpheus playing his lyre in the middle
of an attentive group of Thracians or even of Satyrs. In early paintings
he wore a Greek costume. Later he appeared in Thracian dress, with a
wreath about his head.
According to actual experiment, music appears to have no effect
on certain kinds of animals. But, according to widespread popular
belief, all kinds respond to it. Eastern snake charmers, from time im-
memorial, have purported to govern cobras with the charm of their
piping. The Prose Edda told of a Norse hero condemned to die by
poisonous snakes and of his holding them fascinated by his music -- with
the fatal exception of a deaf adder. And German folklore recorded the
Pied Piper's leading away all the rats and mice of Hamlin. Similar
power was credited to Orpheus. The tradition seems to have been very
old. But Euripides in his Bacchanals, made the first unmistakable allu-
sion to it. After his time, many authors referred to the subject, one of
them being Ovid in the Amores. Popular songs of modern Bulgaria still
tell of the musician Orfen attracting birds and ravenous beasts from the
mountains.
The power of Orpheus over animals was also a favorite theme of
ancient Greek and Roman artists. Orpheus was pictured as sitting on a
grassy hill and playing his lyre to various birds and beasts. In work of
this kind there was an evident fondness for including exotic animals,
such as the lion. One artist, at Hadrumetum in North Africa, treated
the theme comically, representing Orpheus as a monkey. Early Chris-
tian artists identified the musician Orpheus with Christ. They tended
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? ORPHEUS THE MINSTREL
to replace wild creatures with sheep, goats, and doves -- animals
treated symbolically in Scripture, until in a fourth century mosaic at
Ravenna, Orpheus became merely the Good Shepherd caring for his
sheep.
Early Greek tradition had recorded also that Orpheus was able to
draw after him trees and inanimate objects and had ascribed to him
many powers commonly attributed to enchanters. Aeschylus noted in
the Agamemnon that Orpheus led all things by the magic power of sound.
Euripides declared in the Bacchanals that he caused both wild beasts
and trees to gather round him. In Iphigenia at Aulis, Euripides asserted
that he persuaded rocks to follow him. Phanocles observed that Or-
pheus had moved both deaf rocks and waters, melancholy with the bark-
ing of seals. Apollonius noted that he checked the flow of rivers. The
same poet told at some length of his effect on trees. By the charm of
the lyre, he said, Orpheus led oak trees down from the mountains of
Pieria to Zone on the Aegaean coast and caused them to form a well-
ordered grove, which survived in the poet's own time. Vergil in the
Culex mentioned the power of Orpheus to attract beasts and oak trees,
to check the flow of rivers, and to stay the course of the moon in the
sky. Horace referred to his command over winds, and afterwards Claud-
ian spoke even of his attracting mountains.
In accord with the tradition of Orpheus, Ovid observed that, sit-
ting on a grassy hill, he drew round him a circle of trees, beasts, and
birds. And in the opening lines of the Eleventh Book he added that
Orpheus persuaded stones to follow him. Ovid gave special attention to
the assembling of trees, for this allowed him to profit by another tra-
dition, the poetical listing of trees.
In a famous description of Calypso's residence, the poet of the
Odyssey had told of a grove near her dwelling. He enumerated several
kinds of trees, occasionally adding an effective epithet. There were the
alder, and poplar, the fragrant cypress, and the fruitful vine. Later,
while describing the garden of Alcinoiis, the poet made a similar list of
orchard trees. In both accounts he appears to have mentioned only
varieties which could have been found on a Mediterranean isle and to
have described them from observation. Vergil in the Aeneid gave a
similar list of trees which were brought together in the funeral pyre of
Misenus.
But in the Georgics, Vergil used a different method. Purporting to
describe trees of the Caucasus Mountains, he made a long enumeration
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
of forest trees useful to man. Among them he mentioned the alder,
which he associated with the valley of the Po, and the hollow cork oak
offering a home to bees, which was characteristic only of mountains
near the warm Mediterranean shores. Vergil was not describing the for-
est of a particular region but forests in general, and he drew not merely
on observation but also on his reading. Seneca followed the same method
in his Oedipus and was followed in turn by Lucan and Statius. None
of these poets was describing a forest which one might see in nature.
Each of them was recalling details effective in the work of earlier au-
thors and was describing an imaginary forest which would promote the
interest of his poem. All of them were presenting more or less literary
groves. But the artificiality was latent and moderate. Since almost
every ancient author purported to describe some locality near the Medi-
terranean shore, and since the forests of this region varied but little, a
poet might select all his details from the work of his predecessors and
still keep his description reasonably near the fact. The reader might
suspect that his account was artificial and yet feel unable to call any
detail impossible.
The same fashion of describing literary groves appeared in The
Romance of the Rose and in other leading poems of the Middle Ages.
With them the artificial element became, obvious. Poets of northern
Europe, purporting to describe their own country, included trees of the
Mediterranean shore, which they knew only from the work of Roman
predecessors. In The Parliament of Fowls, for example, Chaucer de-
scribed a wood which included the olive for peace and the victor palm.
Such description of literary groves continued in leading poems of the
Renaissance. It appears to have ended with Dryden's funeral of
Arcite. *
Meanwhile Sophocles, telling of the wood at Colonus, had followed
still another method. He referred to the ivy not only as looking dark
with clustering berries but as having an association with Bacchus, and
to the olive tree not only as feeding the boys of Athens but as being the
creation of Athena. He related certain kinds of trees to persons of
mythology. Probably Alexandrian authors followed his example, but
their work is lost.
Vergil in the Culex described two groves of this kind. Near one of
them a shepherd took his noonday rest. This grove included the spread-
*Literary groves were described by Boccacio in the Teseide, Chaucer in The
Knight's Tale, Lydgate in The Complaint of the Black Knight, Camoens in the Lusiads,
Tasso in the Jerusalem Delivered, and Spenser in The Faerie Queene.
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? ORPHEUS THE MINSTREL
ing plane; the wicked lotus, which had beguiled the followers of Ulysses:
the Heliads transformed (into poplars) because of grief for Phaethon:
a maiden betrayed by Demophoon (the almond tree) ; the oaks, chanters
of fates (at Dodona) ; the bristling pine, glory of the ship Argo; black
ilex; weeping cypress; shady beeches; ivy, restraining the grief of the
poplars; and myrtle, remembering its fate of old (transformation of a
certain Myrsine). A second grove was planted round the tomb of the
gnat. It included laurel, beautiful in the eyes of Phoebus (because of
Daphne) ; oleander; Sabine juniper, associated with frankincense; shin-
ing ivy; and everblooming viburnum.
actual cases of snake bite, the poison is fatal only after a period of at
least a quarter of an hour, and usually much longer. But in the myth
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
of Hesperie, death followed almost immediately. The nymph expired as
Daedalion seized her in his arms. Vergil seemed to imagine death as
equally rapid in the case of Eurydice.
Her companions, the Dryads, lamented her, and all Thrace joined
in the mourning. Orpheus first endeavored to dispel his grief hy playing
the lyre and singing all day on the lonely shore. Then he descended into
Hades and appealed to the king of that forbidding realm.
Without attempting a clear and consistent account of the Lower
World, Vergil noted many localities associated with its mystery and
dread. As Orpheus uttered his plea, the souls of the departed gathered
in a multitude to listen, Tartarus opened, the Furies with their snakes
and Cerberus with his three heads remained open-mouthed in wonder,
and Ixion's wheel was motionless in the wind. Vergil did not mention the
purport of the song or state the condition imposed on Orpheus. He indi-
cated that Proserpina offered the terms and Pluto consented to them.
Orpheus then led Eurydice away. Vergil spoke of their path as taking
them up a steep ascent to Lake Avernus, a few miles from his own home
at Naples.
At the last moment Orpheus paused and in pardonable madness
looked back. In the Cvlex, Vergil had spoken of him as impatient to
embrace Eurydice, but in the Georgics he left the motive indefinite. Three
times, he said, a crash was heard in the pools of Avernus. Eurydice re-
proached Orpheus for destroying the happiness of both and spoke of
being overcome with sleep. As Orpheus tried to embrace her and longed
to speak, she escaped his grasp and vanished. Vergil appears to have
imagined that her light spirit fell backwards into the air and floated
down to the shores of the River Styx. He mentioned her as drifting
away, pale and cold in Charon's barge. Vergil noted that Orpheus tried
to follow her but that Charon would not convey him a second time over
the River Styx.
Orpheus, returning to Thrace, continued in mourning for Eurydice.
Eventually he became a god and punished Aristaeus with loss of his bees.
Vergil seemed to imply that Orpheus became a deity of the Lower World
and rejoined his lost wife, for he noted that, when Aristaeus had offered
reparation, the spirit of Eurydice was appeased.
Of all versions of the tragic story Vergil's was the most beautiful.
By Ovid's time it had become famous. In retelling the same tale Ovid
could not hope to equal his great predecessor, but he was sure to invite
comparison. His purpose was to make the new version different, to re-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
tain the chief incidents, but continually to vary details. Although he
followed Vergil in some respects, especially in his vague allusion to local-
ities, he continually showed his ability to move on different ground --
to omit circumstances included by Vergil and to introduce new circum-
stances of his own. A reader might prefer the version of the Georgics,
but he would be glad to supplement it with the account of Ovid.
Since tradition usually had regarded Aristaeus as the father of
Actaeon (Bk. 3), considerations of time made it necessary for Ovid to
omit his part in the tale. Ovid spoke of Eurydice as walking with some
companions along the grassy river bank. Vergil had called these com-
panions tree nymphs (Dryads), but Ovid imagined them more appro-
priately as water nymphs (Naiads). With the Alexandrian author,
Ovid agreed that by mere inadvertence, Eurydice trod on a hidden snake.
This departure from Vergil gave him the further advantage that later
he could tell a different story of Hesperie. According to Ovid, the ser-
pent bit Eurydice in the heel. Ovid indicated only the mourning of
Orpheus.
After mentioning a descent at Taenerus, he spoke of Orpheus as
traversing the region of ghosts who had received burial and as coming
to Proserpina and Pluto. Ovid gave the words of the song. He seems to
have invented the ideas, aided by some details in Vergil's Aeneid. Vergil
had suggested that one reason for the descent of Aeneas into Hades had
been that the gods wanted to have him see the realms of the dead. Vergil
had shown the guide, Sibylla, disclaiming any intention to carry off
Cerberus, after the manner of Hercules (cf. Bk. 7). Ovid showed Orpheus
declaring that he came neither to see the realm of Tartarus nor to cap-
ture Cerberus. He came because his wife had died prematurely from the
bite of a viper. Although he had endeavored to bear the loss, he had
been overcome by Love, a god famous not only in the world of sunlight
but apparently in Hades also, for Love was said to have caused the mar-
riage of Pluto and Proserpina. Here Ovid seemed to recall his own
version of the tale (Bk. 5).
Orpheus urged the infernal deities to unravel the fate of Eurydice,
alluding to a famous belief that patterns of human life are woven by the
Fates (cf. Arachne, Bk. 6). Vergil in his Aeneid had associated Chaos
with the Lower World. Accordingly, Ovid showed Orpheus appealing
to Proserpina and Pluto in the name of these fearful places, of huge
Chaos, and the silence of the vast kingdom. An invocation of this kind
would be impressive for the reader but unlikely to persuade the infernal
deities.
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
Orpheus proceeded to another idea. It is the destiny of every
mortal, he declared, to spend only a short life above and then to descend
into Hades for the rest of eternity. Through all this length of time he
is destined to be a subject of Pluto and Proserpina. In the natural
course of events Eurydice soon would finish her allotted years on earth
and return to this lower realm. Until then, he desired her as a favor.
But he feared lest a matter of this kind should be under the superior
jurisdiction of the Fates. A similar idea, that only the Fates could
make a human being older or younger than his appointed age, Ovid had
used in the tale of Iolaiis (Bk. 9). Should the Fates refuse to give up
Eurydice, Orpheus continued, he himself would remain in Hades.
Vergil had spoken of the song as arousing wonder throughout the
Lower World. Ovid thought of it as arousing pity. The ghosts and even
the Furies wept. Vergil had mentioned the song's affording relief to
Ixion. Following Vergil's suggestion, other Roman poets had elaborated
the idea that on some occasion there was temporary relief for the cele-
brated criminals of Hades. Horace declared in an ode that Mercury
with his lyre tamed Cerberus, made Ixion and Tityus smile in their
anguish, and caused the Danaids joleave their urns unfilled. In another
ode, he observed that after Sapphoand Alcaeus had gone down to the
Lower World, they often warbled laments to the accompaniment of the
lyre. Their song calmed Cerberus and the snakes of the Furies, and they
beguiled Prometheus and Tantalus fromVsuffering and Orion from hunt-
ing. Propertius described Cornelia, the wife of his patron, as praying
that, while she was being judged in Hades, general peace might prevail:
that Furies might stand idle and Sisyphus be freed from his boulder,
the wheel of Ixion might be silent, and water be caught by Tantalus, and
that Cerbeyus might refrain from attacking any shade.
Remembering all these passages but especially those of Horace,
Ovid gave a full enumeration. He suited the detail to his own purpose.
While Orpheus lamented to the accompaniment of the lyre, he said,
Tantalus refrained from catching at the water, the wheel of Ixion
stopped in amazement, the vulture no longer fed on Tityus, the Danaids
rested from their urns, Sisyphus remained seated on his boulder, and the
cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. In this description Ovid fol-
lowed the usual idea that Tartarus and its famous criminals were always
visible from the rest of Hades. Vergil both in the Georgics and in the
Aeneid had thought of Tartarus as shut off by a high wall and gate.
Ovid noted, as one effect of Orpheus, how the Danaids were relieved
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
from their futile labor of carrying water in urns full of holes. His idea
was in strange contrast with the older conception of this punishment.
According to early Greek vase paintings, the task was assigned to those
-- both men and women -- who had failed to become initiated into the
Orphic rites of Bacchus. It had no relation to the Danaids. This idea
was repeated in a painting of Polygnotus and in a dialogue of Plato.
And Plato in his Gorgias may have alluded to it, when he observed that
wisdom in thoughtless minds is like water in a sieve. It would have been
strange for Orpheus to relieve those who were punished for disregard of
his teaching.
According to the older view, the Danaids were not guilty of any
crime. Aeschylus in his Suppliants appears to have exonerated them
because they killed husbands who were forced on them. Early tradition
spoke of their becoming nymphs associated with wells. But at the end
of the fourth century B. C. a dialogue mistakenly attributed to Plato
described them as guilty of murder and assigned to them the traditional
punishment of carrying urns in Hades. The new idea became very pop-
ular, and Ovid followed it in his tale of Orpheus.
The Queen and King of Hades, he said, could not refuse the singer's
request. Presumably they could not resist the persuasion of his appeal.
They summoned Eurydice from among the newly arrived shades. She
came slowly, because she still was lame from the wound. This pathetic
detail was in accord with a world-wide belief of primitive men that an
injury which occurs to the body of a dead person will continue to afflict
the spirit. Vergil in his Aeneid had given the belief prominence when he
described the shade of Dei'phobus as appearing with an extremely muti-
lated face. But the idea that Eurydice suffered from lameness was not in
harmony with Ovid's later account of her following Orpheus up a diffi-
cult path to the world above. Ovid stated the condition that Orpheus
was not to look back at his wife until they had passed beyond the realm
of Hades.
Then, following the implication of Vergil, he noted clearly the cir-
cumstance of the path's leading them up a steep slope to Avernus. Ovid
left no doubt as to the reason why his hero forgot the warning. Orpheus
wanted to reassure himself that Eurydice was following. This idea seems
to have been original with Ovid. As Eurydice glided away towards the
depths, Ovid continued, Orpheus tried vainly to hold her. Ovid recalled
Vergil's statement that, when Aeneas attempted to hold the departing
shade of Creiisa, he embraced only yielding air. He mentioned a similar
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
experience of Orpheus. Vergil had shown Eurydice complaining to her
husband. But Ovid declared that she could not complain of his loving
her and that she merely uttered the word "farewell", which hardly
reached his ears. Ovid gave the impression that she drifted back all the
way to her former place in Hades.
On losing his wife a second time, Ovid continued, Orpheus resembled
a man who had been turned into stone. Ovid likened him first to a name-
less man, who, seeing Hercules drag forth Cerberus, was petrified with
terror, and then to Olenus and Lethaea, who became two stones on the
Mt. Ida near Troy. Ovid added that Lethaea was transformed for boast-
ing over much of her own beauty and that Olenus, who was innocent of
the offence, volunteered to share the fate of his beloved. Ovid implied
that his Roman audience was familiar with both stories. We know them
only from him. By alluding to these tales, he was able to give his account
the needed metamorphosis, but at the cost of diverting the reader's atten-
tion unduly from Orpheus.
Following Vergil, Ovid noted that Charon refused to convey Or-
pheus a second time over the River Styx. Ovid invented the idea that
Orpheus remained seven days on the bank, squalid and fasting. And, as
in the case of the psalmist and of Clytie (Bk. 4), tears were his only
nourishment. At last Orpheus returned, lamenting, to his native coun-
try-
During the later Roman period Seneca made a rather long allu-
sion to Orpheus in his Hercules on Mt. Oeta, Hyginus retold the tale
briefly in his Astronomy, and Boethius recalled a few circumstances in
order to point the moral that one must not look back at worldly joys,
while ascending to heaven. On the whole, these authors followed either
Greek versions of the tale or the account in Vergil's Georgics. But Sen-
eca noted Ovid's idea that Pluto could not resist the plea of Orpheus and
showed Pluto declaring himself overcome. Claudian recalled Ovid, as
he told how the sufferers in Hades were relieved at the arrival of Proser-
pina.
With the fall of Rome, Ovid's narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice
became the only full account which remained accessible. It was well
known and exceedingly popular with medieval authors. Probably it en-
couraged even the anonymous account of a French poet who followed
Boethius. This author told how a fiend guided Orpheus down to the
Lower World and on the way back caused him to turn by making a sud-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
den uproar behind him. Undoubtedly Ovid's narrative contributed to
the work of many authors who relied chiefly on earlier medieval versions.
Both the Flamenca and the Romance of the Seven Sages alluded
to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Petrarch referred to it in his
double sestina and in his Triumph of Love. In an ode to Laura, he re-
called the accident of treading on the snake. Nicholas Trivet recorded
the tale of Eurydice in his Chronicle, inspiring later the Scottish poeti-
cal version of Henryson. And Guillaume de Machaut retold the myth
in his Comfort d'Ami.
Meanwhile the Bretons had made over the classic story into an
elaborate Celtic fairy tale. The chief circumstances of their version
were as follows. Orpheus and Eurydice were king and queen of Thrace.
One day, after the queen had appeared to be a long time asleep in her
garden, she awoke and acted as if she were in a frenzy. Orpheus eventu-
ally learned from her that a king of fairy land, with a company of
knights and ladies, had carried her off to his castle and had brought her
back, with the assurance that on the morrow he would take her again
and forever. Although King Orpheus appointed many knights to pre-
vent the abduction, the queen vanished from among them. After arrang-
ing the affairs of his kingdom, Orpheus withdrew into the forest, taking
only his haxp. For ten years he lived a wretched life but often en-
thralled the wild birds and beasts with his music. At last he saw Eury-
dice with some other ladies, and, following them, at last gained admit-
tance to the court of fairy land. By his music he so delighted both king
and queen that the king granted him in advance any reward that he
might ask. Orpheus begged for the return of Eurydice, and the king con-
sented. After further adventures Orpheus and Eurydice regained their
throne and lived happily to the end of their days.
In this lay, more than in any other medieval version of a classic
tale, the ancient theme was permeated with the lore of Celtic fairy land.
The lay of Orpheus appeared at least as early as the middle of the twelfth
century and was mentioned by Marie de France. It inspired three very
popular medieval romances -- the first in French, the second in English,
and the third in Italian.
And the English poem is the only known ex-
ample of a medieval romance which afterwards inspired a popular
ballad. *
With the coming of the Renaissance, Vergil's treatments of the
*The French and the Italian romances were called Sir Orfeo. The English ro-
mance was called, in one version, Kyng Orfew and, in another version Orpheo and
Heurodis.
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? ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
theme became accessible. His Cvlex probably suggested to Spenser the
idea that Scudamour, rescuing Amoret from the Temple of Venus was
threatened by enemies, as Orpheus recovering Eurydice was threatened
by Cerberus. The Georgics influenced many authors, notably Ariosto in
his drama Orpheus and Aristaeus, and Landor in a narrative poem.
But Ovid's version continued to be the most accessible and the best
known, and almost always it contributed at least a few details to the
modern author.
Three leading poets retold the familiar tale: Lope de Vega in his
play, The Constant Husband, Phineas Fletcher in The Purple Island,
and Pope in the Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. Goethe planned to introduce
Orpheus in a scene where Faust was to visit Proserpina and obtain Helen
of Troy, but he left the scene unwritten. Other poets treated the story
in a new form. William King, writing in the first years of the eighteenth
century, presented Ovid's tale as a clever burlesque. Lewis Morris in his
Epic of Hades imagined that Eurydice repeatedly called Orpheus by
name and so led him to forget the warning. Brookes More gave a
similar version in his Orpheus and Eurydice.
A number of modern authors alluded to the story as a whole.
Herrera and Swinburne referred to it at some length in sonnets. Spenser
mentioned the tale briefly both in his Ruins of Time and in his Epitha-
lamion. In his Daphnaida he confused the descent of Orpheus for Eu-
rydice, with the quest of Ceres for Proserpina. Milton, speaking of his
Paradise Lost declared,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent and up to reascend;
Though hard and rare.
Modern poets often recalled only one part of the tale. In a Hymn
to Love, Spenser referred to the descent into Hades, as evidence that
Love can make his servants heedless of danger. The eloquent pleading
of Orpheus repeatedly interested Milton. In a Latin poem to his father
Milton declared that it was the song of Orpheus, not the music of his
lyre, which made the plea effective. In 11 Penseroso, Milton averred
that Orpheus
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
Philip Freneau treated the incident of the plea in his Prayer of Orpheus.
Tennyson-Turner alluded to the circumstance that Orpheus relieved the
penance of Hades. Milton observed in L'Allegro that Orpheus failed in
the quest, and Lowell presented the idea as an allegory of youth, which
we soon lose and never quite regain. Fielding spoke of Tom Jones as
leading Mrs. Waters to safety and as looking back at her, unwisely, yet
with better fortune than Orpheus. Browning described Eurydice as re-
calling with joy her lover's unforgettable look.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice attracted a great number of
modern artists. Both hero and heroine appeared in two medallions by
Luca Signorelli and in paintings by Giorgione, Rubens, Demont, Potter,
and Beyschlag. G. F. Watts and Frederick Leighton pictured the inci-
dent of the hero's looking back at his wife. Orpheus appeared separately
in paintings by Caravaggio, Podesta, Gerard de Lairesse, Regnault,
Deuilly, Restout, and Loefftz, and in a painting which decorates the
Town Hall of Dantzig. And Orpheus was the theme of a masterpiece
by Moreau. Poussin showed the hero inquiring his way to Hades,
Bandinelli and Peinte pictured his encounter with Cerberus, and
Verlet portrayed his grief after the fatal mistake. Ricketts, Crawford,
and Swan treated Orpheus in sculpture. Still others took a special in-
terest in Eurydice. Corot painted her just after she suffered the fatal
bite, and both de Medina and Legendre-Heral treated her as a theme for
sculpture.
The story became very prominent also in the history of music. It
inspired important early operas by Peri, Monteverdi, and Gliick, and
the popular comic opera by Offenbach. It suggested also a fragmentary
opera by Haydn, which often was adapted to other forms of music.
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? ORPHEUS THE MINSTREL
Okpheus the Minstrel
When Ovid had recounted the loss of Eurydice, he proceeded to
later events in the story of Orpheus. Both Phanocles and Vergil had
given some account of them. They agreed that Orpheus avoided the
society of all other women and that in time he offended the women of
Thrace. They differed as to the nature of the offence. According to
Phanocles, Orpheus taught others to neglect women. Orpheus gave his
attention to an attractive boy, Calais son of Boreas, and by his example
led the Thracians in general to prefer boys. According to Vergil, Or-
pheus offended merely by indifference of his own. For seven months he
continued to mourn Eurydice, and his grief for her made him heedless
of all others. In fact the period of mourning ended only with his death.
Ovid took suggestions both from Phanocles and from Vergil. With
Phanocles he agreed that Orpheus by his example led the Thracians to
prefer boys. But he did not mention Calais. Ovid imagined further that
Orpheus was comforted sufficiently to think of still other matters, and
this allowed him to introduce many tales which otherwise had no rela-
tion to the sequence of his poem. Ovid noted the passage of three years
after the loss of Eurydice, observing that three times the sun had en-
tered the constellation of the Fishes -- the time just before the spring
equinox. With Vergil, Ovid agreed that Orpheus offended the Thracian
women by indifference of his own. He added that some of them made
overtures and were repulsed.
Both Phanocles and Vergil had referred to Orpheus as in the habit
of singing among wild surroundings. According to Phanocles, he used
to sit in the forest and sing of Calais. According to Vergil, he sang of
his lost Eurydice, either by the cold headwaters of the river Strymon or
northwards in the region of the Don and the Ural Mountains, and the
beauty of his lament softened tigers and caused oak trees to follow him. *
Ovid saw a chance to profit by the tradition of Orpheus and the super-
natural power of his music.
Since early times the Greeks had regarded Orpheus as the pioneer
*In the time of Orpheus, tigers appear to have been absent from any country that
Orpheus is supposed to have visited, and at the close of the fifth century B. C. , Xeno-
phon, telling of his army's return from Persia through Armenia, made no allusion to
tigers. But afterwards they migrated westwards into the region of the Caucasus
Mountains, and their presence often was mentioned by Roman poets. This fact may
have led Vergil to imagine that Orpheus found them in the adjacent region of the
Don.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
of culture in Thrace and even in all parts of the Greek world. Some
authors mentioned his teaching religion. Euripides in the Rhesus cred-
ited him with establishing the rites of Bacchus. Apollonius told of his
instructing the Argonauts in the worship of Apollo. Others mentioned
his improving the daily life of the people. In the Alcestis, Euripides
declared that Orpheus first recorded the precepts of medicine. Aris-
tophanes in the Frogs and Horace in the Art of Poetry observed that he
taught the Thracians to avoid bloodshed and to prepare food in a
civilized manner.
Even apart from the tale of Eurydice, Orpheus continually was
described as having supernatural power in music. Horace thought this
idea merely represented in a figurative way the persuasiveness of his
teaching. But most authors took the idea literally. They considered his
power with music as at least a very important element in his civilizing
influence. Greek artists pictured Orpheus playing his lyre in the middle
of an attentive group of Thracians or even of Satyrs. In early paintings
he wore a Greek costume. Later he appeared in Thracian dress, with a
wreath about his head.
According to actual experiment, music appears to have no effect
on certain kinds of animals. But, according to widespread popular
belief, all kinds respond to it. Eastern snake charmers, from time im-
memorial, have purported to govern cobras with the charm of their
piping. The Prose Edda told of a Norse hero condemned to die by
poisonous snakes and of his holding them fascinated by his music -- with
the fatal exception of a deaf adder. And German folklore recorded the
Pied Piper's leading away all the rats and mice of Hamlin. Similar
power was credited to Orpheus. The tradition seems to have been very
old. But Euripides in his Bacchanals, made the first unmistakable allu-
sion to it. After his time, many authors referred to the subject, one of
them being Ovid in the Amores. Popular songs of modern Bulgaria still
tell of the musician Orfen attracting birds and ravenous beasts from the
mountains.
The power of Orpheus over animals was also a favorite theme of
ancient Greek and Roman artists. Orpheus was pictured as sitting on a
grassy hill and playing his lyre to various birds and beasts. In work of
this kind there was an evident fondness for including exotic animals,
such as the lion. One artist, at Hadrumetum in North Africa, treated
the theme comically, representing Orpheus as a monkey. Early Chris-
tian artists identified the musician Orpheus with Christ. They tended
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? ORPHEUS THE MINSTREL
to replace wild creatures with sheep, goats, and doves -- animals
treated symbolically in Scripture, until in a fourth century mosaic at
Ravenna, Orpheus became merely the Good Shepherd caring for his
sheep.
Early Greek tradition had recorded also that Orpheus was able to
draw after him trees and inanimate objects and had ascribed to him
many powers commonly attributed to enchanters. Aeschylus noted in
the Agamemnon that Orpheus led all things by the magic power of sound.
Euripides declared in the Bacchanals that he caused both wild beasts
and trees to gather round him. In Iphigenia at Aulis, Euripides asserted
that he persuaded rocks to follow him. Phanocles observed that Or-
pheus had moved both deaf rocks and waters, melancholy with the bark-
ing of seals. Apollonius noted that he checked the flow of rivers. The
same poet told at some length of his effect on trees. By the charm of
the lyre, he said, Orpheus led oak trees down from the mountains of
Pieria to Zone on the Aegaean coast and caused them to form a well-
ordered grove, which survived in the poet's own time. Vergil in the
Culex mentioned the power of Orpheus to attract beasts and oak trees,
to check the flow of rivers, and to stay the course of the moon in the
sky. Horace referred to his command over winds, and afterwards Claud-
ian spoke even of his attracting mountains.
In accord with the tradition of Orpheus, Ovid observed that, sit-
ting on a grassy hill, he drew round him a circle of trees, beasts, and
birds. And in the opening lines of the Eleventh Book he added that
Orpheus persuaded stones to follow him. Ovid gave special attention to
the assembling of trees, for this allowed him to profit by another tra-
dition, the poetical listing of trees.
In a famous description of Calypso's residence, the poet of the
Odyssey had told of a grove near her dwelling. He enumerated several
kinds of trees, occasionally adding an effective epithet. There were the
alder, and poplar, the fragrant cypress, and the fruitful vine. Later,
while describing the garden of Alcinoiis, the poet made a similar list of
orchard trees. In both accounts he appears to have mentioned only
varieties which could have been found on a Mediterranean isle and to
have described them from observation. Vergil in the Aeneid gave a
similar list of trees which were brought together in the funeral pyre of
Misenus.
But in the Georgics, Vergil used a different method. Purporting to
describe trees of the Caucasus Mountains, he made a long enumeration
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
of forest trees useful to man. Among them he mentioned the alder,
which he associated with the valley of the Po, and the hollow cork oak
offering a home to bees, which was characteristic only of mountains
near the warm Mediterranean shores. Vergil was not describing the for-
est of a particular region but forests in general, and he drew not merely
on observation but also on his reading. Seneca followed the same method
in his Oedipus and was followed in turn by Lucan and Statius. None
of these poets was describing a forest which one might see in nature.
Each of them was recalling details effective in the work of earlier au-
thors and was describing an imaginary forest which would promote the
interest of his poem. All of them were presenting more or less literary
groves. But the artificiality was latent and moderate. Since almost
every ancient author purported to describe some locality near the Medi-
terranean shore, and since the forests of this region varied but little, a
poet might select all his details from the work of his predecessors and
still keep his description reasonably near the fact. The reader might
suspect that his account was artificial and yet feel unable to call any
detail impossible.
The same fashion of describing literary groves appeared in The
Romance of the Rose and in other leading poems of the Middle Ages.
With them the artificial element became, obvious. Poets of northern
Europe, purporting to describe their own country, included trees of the
Mediterranean shore, which they knew only from the work of Roman
predecessors. In The Parliament of Fowls, for example, Chaucer de-
scribed a wood which included the olive for peace and the victor palm.
Such description of literary groves continued in leading poems of the
Renaissance. It appears to have ended with Dryden's funeral of
Arcite. *
Meanwhile Sophocles, telling of the wood at Colonus, had followed
still another method. He referred to the ivy not only as looking dark
with clustering berries but as having an association with Bacchus, and
to the olive tree not only as feeding the boys of Athens but as being the
creation of Athena. He related certain kinds of trees to persons of
mythology. Probably Alexandrian authors followed his example, but
their work is lost.
Vergil in the Culex described two groves of this kind. Near one of
them a shepherd took his noonday rest. This grove included the spread-
*Literary groves were described by Boccacio in the Teseide, Chaucer in The
Knight's Tale, Lydgate in The Complaint of the Black Knight, Camoens in the Lusiads,
Tasso in the Jerusalem Delivered, and Spenser in The Faerie Queene.
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? ORPHEUS THE MINSTREL
ing plane; the wicked lotus, which had beguiled the followers of Ulysses:
the Heliads transformed (into poplars) because of grief for Phaethon:
a maiden betrayed by Demophoon (the almond tree) ; the oaks, chanters
of fates (at Dodona) ; the bristling pine, glory of the ship Argo; black
ilex; weeping cypress; shady beeches; ivy, restraining the grief of the
poplars; and myrtle, remembering its fate of old (transformation of a
certain Myrsine). A second grove was planted round the tomb of the
gnat. It included laurel, beautiful in the eyes of Phoebus (because of
Daphne) ; oleander; Sabine juniper, associated with frankincense; shin-
ing ivy; and everblooming viburnum.
