Orpheus and Eurydice

Soon after their wedding, Eurydice was bitten by a snake and died. Orpheus was struck with grief and mourned her much, then resolved to enter the world below to bring her back. Metamorphoses 10.11-39 

(Scroll down for the second and third recordings)

After mourning her fully in the upper world, the bard of Rhodope then dared to go down to the Styx through the gate of Taenarus to seek a response from the shades. Amid flitting souls and figures whose burial rites have been completed Orpheus approached Persephone and the lord of shadows who controls the unlovely realms. Orpheus played his strings to his song and these were his words: ‘O spirits of the world which lies in the depths of the earth, where we begotten of mortal stuff fall back, if it is permitted and you allow me to speak the truth, having got straight to the point with no pretence, I did not come down here to see dark Tartarus or to bind the three, snake-bristling, throats of the monster son of Medusa. My journey here is for my wife. A serpent she trod on sank its poison into her and took away her prime of life. I wanted to be able to endure this and I’ll not say I didn’t try. But Love has defeated me. This god is well known in the land above; whether here too I am unsure. However, my feeling is he is here too, if the story of the abduction long ago is no lie: Love brought you together as well. By these places full of fear, by this world below and by the silent stretches of a vast kingdom, I beg you, undo the untimely end of Eurydice. We are altogether bound to you. After a short interval, give or take, we soon reach this destination. Here we all make our way, this is our final home. The kingdom you control holds the human race longer than any other. Eurydice too, when she reaches her time and has passed a reasonable number of years, will come under your jurisdiction. I beg a gift of you, to enjoy her still. But if the fates deny this favour for my wife, I am resolved not to return, and you take pleasure in the death of us both.’

The underworld is so struck by his plea and his music that everything, even the punishments, come to a halt. He may have his wife, on one condition.  Metamorphoses 10.40-63

He sang such a song and played his strings to the words, and the bloodless souls wept. Tantalus stopped chasing the elusive water, the wheel of Ixion stood still in wonder, nor did the birds peck at the liver. The Belides let go their urns, and you, Sisyphus, sat upon your rock. Then, the story goes, for the first time did tears soak the cheeks of the Furies, who had been overwhelmed by his song. The royal consort and he who rules the depths could not bear Orpheus’ plea to be denied, and they summon Eurydice. She was among the fresh spirits and approached with a limp because of her wound. The hero of Rhodope welcomed her and with her a condition that he not turn back his gaze until he had left the valley of Avernus, otherwise his gift would not be realised. They take the upward path through places silent and still, a steep climb, dark, thick with shadowy murk. They were not far from the edge of the upper world when the loving man, eager to see her and afraid she might falter, turned his eyes – and immediately she fell back. He stretched out his arms and tried to hug her, and be hugged, but the poor fellow grasped nothing but passing air. Dying now a second time she made no complaint at her husband (for what could she say except that he loved her?), and with a final ‘farewell’, which at this point barely reached his ears, she turned back again to the same place.

Orpheus tries to cross the Styx a second time.  Metamorphoses 10.72-77

Despite his pleas, the ferryman pushed him back and his yearning to cross again came to nothing. He sat seven days on the bank, unkempt and without food. Grief and the pain in his heart were his only nourishment. He railed at the cruel gods of Erebus, and took himself off to the heights of Rhodope and wind-swept Haemus.