Orpheus in the Underworld

Orpheus was the son of the Muse Calliope and, some say, the god Apollo himself. From his divine parentage he inherited a gift beyond that of any mortal: when he played his lyre and sang, all nature fell silent to listen. Rivers stopped flowing, wild beasts grew tame, and even the trees and stones followed him, swaying to his melodies. He had sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, and his music had drowned out the fatal song of the Sirens, saving the crew from destruction.

Yet for all his fame and power, Orpheus wanted only one thing: to spend his life with Eurydice, the wood nymph he had married. Their love was the subject of songs throughout Greece, a union of perfect harmony between two souls.

Their happiness was brief. Shortly after their wedding, Eurydice was walking through a meadow when she caught the attention of Aristaeus, a shepherd god who pursued her with lustful intent. Fleeing from him, she stepped upon a venomous serpent hidden in the grass. The snake bit her ankle, and she died within moments, her soul descending to the realm of Hades.

Orpheus's grief was inconsolable. He wandered the mountains playing songs of such sorrow that even the gods wept. The birds fell silent, and the leaves of the trees turned brown and fell, sharing in his mourning. But grief was not enough. Orpheus resolved to do what no living mortal had ever done: descend to the Underworld and bring his wife back from the dead.

Orpheus found the cave at Taenarum that led to the realm of Hades and began his descent. He passed through the gloom where the newly dead wandered, their shades parting before him as he played. He came to the River Styx, where Charon the ferryman refused all living passengers. But when Orpheus began to sing, Charon's oar went still, and the old boatman wept for the first time in millennia. He ferried Orpheus across.

Cerberus, the three-headed hound who guarded the gates of the Underworld, was lulled into peaceful sleep by Orpheus's music. The wheel of Ixion stopped turning. Tantalus forgot his hunger. The Furies themselves, the pitiless avengers who knew no mercy, felt tears rolling down their cheeks.

Never before had music been heard in that dark realm where all is silence and shadow. And never would it be heard again, for what Orpheus sang was the song of mortal love, which the dead can no longer feel and the gods of death have never known.

Orpheus came at last to the throne room of Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the dead. There, surrounded by the shades of countless mortals and the dim splendor of the Underworld palace, he played his final plea.

He sang of his love for Eurydice, of the brief years they had shared and the eternity they had been denied. He sang of the power of love, which conquers all things, even death. He reminded the king and queen that they too had known love: Hades had taken Persephone, and she had eventually come to care for him. "All mortals must descend to you in time," he sang. "She will return to you, as we all must. I ask only for a few more years."

Persephone wept openly. Even Hades, the implacable lord of the dead who had never granted any petition, felt his heart soften. He agreed to release Eurydice on one condition: Orpheus must lead her back to the upper world, walking ahead of her the entire way. He must not look back at her until they both stood in the light of the sun. If he turned to look, even once, she would be lost to him forever.

Orpheus agreed without hesitation. Eurydice's shade was summoned, still limping from the wound that had killed her, and she followed her husband toward the distant light. The path was long and dark, winding upward through caverns and passages, past the rivers of the dead and through the gates of horn.

Orpheus walked ahead, playing his lyre to light the way, straining his ears for any sound of Eurydice's footsteps behind him. But the dead make no sound, and the silence was terrible. Was she truly there? Had Hades deceived him? Was she falling behind, unable to keep up?

At last, Orpheus saw the light of the upper world ahead. He stepped out of the cave into the sunlight and, in his overwhelming joy and doubt, turned to embrace his wife.

Eurydice was still in the shadows, one step from freedom. Their eyes met for a single moment. She reached out her hand. "Farewell," she whispered, as she was pulled backward into the darkness, lost to him forever.

Orpheus tried to follow, but Charon would not ferry him a second time. He sat by the entrance to the Underworld for seven days, neither eating nor drinking, until at last he wandered away into the wilderness.

He never loved again. He refused all companionship, male or female, and played only songs of mourning. Finally, the Maenads, the wild women who followed Dionysus, encountered him. Offended by his rejection of their god's pleasures or perhaps driven mad by his sorrowful music, they tore him apart, scattering his limbs across the countryside.

But even in death, his head continued to sing, floating down the river Hebrus to the sea and eventually to the island of Lesbos, where it became an oracle. The Muses gathered his remains and buried them at the foot of Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sing more sweetly than anywhere else in Greece. His lyre was placed among the stars as the constellation Lyra.

And in the Underworld, Orpheus and Eurydice were reunited at last, free to walk together through the asphodel meadows for all eternity, and this time he could look at her as often as he wished.