C.L. Stegall

Last week we talked about Niobe, the tragic demigod daugh­ter of Tan­ta­lus.  In Greek mythol­ogy, demigods were quite impor­tant aspects of the pan­theon. Demigods were half god, half mor­tal and quite a few of them were heroes – the names of whom with which you would be instantly famil­iar – yet, not all of them were. Nev­er­the­less, many of those greatly gifted and pow­er­ful beings were steeped in tragedy. (I did state before that the mythol­ogy is dark and tragic in most of its “lessons.” This tale is no excep­tion, even though it holds at its heart the weight of true love and faithfulness.)

I’ve always held a great affin­ity for music.  I’ve writ­ten my fair share of lyrics and even done a bit of inde­pen­dent song-making (tragic though that effort may have been).  Still, I love all types and gen­res of music: rock, coun­try, opera, blue­grass, rap, R&B, vocal stan­dards, etc. If it’s good music, I enjoy it. Sim­ple as that.

For this fact alone, I find myself drawn to a par­tic­u­lar demigod of Greek mythol­ogy: Orpheus.

Orpheus was sort of unique in his parent­age.  He was the son of Cal­liope, a Muse, and of Mor­pheus, the god of dreams. His mother, being a muse of song and epic poetry, taught her son all there was to know about music and the art of it all.  Orpheus became so well-known, in fact, that he was once acknowl­edged by Apollo, the god of the sun and prophecy*, who gifted the young man with a golden lyre. (A lyre is a small, harp-like instru­ment strummed with one hand while the fin­gers of the other silence the unwanted strings/notes. It is a con­fus­ing instru­ment and many orga­nol­o­gists argue its classification.)

Orpheus became a mas­ter of the lyre and played it wher­ever he went, on quite a few jour­neys and adven­tures. The most famous of these jour­neys was prob­a­bly his time spent with Jason and the Arg­onauts aboard the ship Argo, as they sought out the Golden Fleece. At one point in the jour­ney, the Argo came dan­ger­ously close to the land of the Sirens (treach­er­ous and lethal female crea­tures who lured sailors to their deaths with their glo­ri­ously beau­ti­ful voices) and the men of the crew were drawn by the Sirens’ song. A few of them leaped from the ves­sel and died in their efforts to reach the shore where the Sirens were. How­ever, it was then that Orpheus began to play his lyre loud and strong, drown­ing out the Sirens’ voices long enough for the ship to finally escape.

Orpheus even­tu­ally met his match in Eury­dice, a beau­ti­ful nymph with whom he fell madly and deeply in love.  In her, his heart was for­ever lost.  They were mar­ried in a gor­geous out­door set­ting (she was a nymph, after all) with many brides­maids liven­ing up the cer­e­mony.  Still, tragedy struck.  Almost imme­di­ately after the wed­ding cer­e­mony was com­pleted, Eury­dice and her brides­maids scam­pered into the woods and Eury­dice was bit­ten by a poi­so­nous ser­pent and died. Orpheus was devastated.

For days and days, the young man mourned the loss of his one true love, until he came upon a deci­sion.  A des­per­ate deci­sion. He would travel into the Under­world and ask Hades and his beau­ti­ful queen, Perse­phone, to have Eury­dice back.

Orpheus was noth­ing if not deter­mined.  Love and heart­break can drive the most timid of men into realms of dan­ger into which they would never have oth­er­wise ven­tured.  Orpheus fol­lowed through with his plan. He used his tal­ent for song to tame the three-headed Cer­berus, the dog-monster guardian of the gates of the Under­world, as well as the dark fer­rier, Charon, and made his way right to the feet of Hades, him­self, and Queen Persephone.

Orpheus played for them his most amaz­ing and achingly beau­ti­ful song, one of eter­nal love.  So sweetly did he per­form, so heart­felt was his song, that it brought the queen to tears. Perse­phone pleaded with Hades to let Orpheus take his love, Eury­dice, back to the world above. Hades was also touched by the young man’s deter­mi­na­tion and agreed to allow him to take his young wife back with him…on one spe­cific con­di­tion: Orpheus could not look at her until they both reached the light of the liv­ing world above.

Orpheus and Eurydice

Over­joyed and thrilled with this suc­cess, Orpheus began to lead his unseen wife to the sur­face, only to feel his heart over­whelmed with joy and long­ing to see his one true love once again.  He stole but a quick glance just as they reached the edge of the Under­world. He had for­got­ten that both of them needed to be in the light of the liv­ing, and his glance was one step too soon. Orpheus was shocked to see as Eury­dice began to fade away, lost from him for­ever again.

Orpheus tried in futil­ity to get Hades and Perse­phone to let him take Eury­dice back, but they would no longer lis­ten to him. His one chance to save his love, he had destroyed with a glance. He was beyond heart­bro­ken and over­come with grief.

Now, remem­ber, I fore­warned you that many of these tales had hor­ri­bly dark end­ings.  As if Orpheus’ story had not been tragic to this point, here is what hap­pened next.

Orpheus came to dis­dain the wor­ship of any god other than Apollo. One early morn­ing, he headed up to the tem­ple of Diony­sus at Mount Pan­gaion in order to bet­ter salute his god (Apollo) at dawn.  This turned out to be a bad idea for sev­eral rea­sons. For one, Orpheus had spurned the love of any woman after he had lost his Eury­dice; in fact, he even­tu­ally became known as the “first sodomite” since he took only young boys for lovers.

Now, Diony­sus’ tem­ple was guarded by the Mae­nads, Thra­cian women of less than sta­ble psy­chol­ogy. Need­less to say, they were quite upset with Orpheus for both diss­ing Diony­sus as well as ignor­ing their advances.  At the sight of him, the Mae­nads began to throw rocks and sticks at him, only to have him play such sweet music that even those inan­i­mate objects refused to strike him.  The girls lost it.  They attacked, scream­ing, and tore Orpheus apart, literally.

Mae­nads

The good news was that his soul returned to the Under­world, finally reunited with his love, Eurydice.

So, you tell me, folks.  Would you risk/give your life for the one you love?

Think about that before you answer.  You may learn some­thing from your thoughts alone.

Is that your final answer? You want to phone a friend?

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* — We meet Apollo in all his bril­liant glory in the nov­els of my Prog­eny series, begin­ning with “The Weight Of Night.”