ABSTRACT
For obvious reasons, the legend of Orpheus has always had a particular appeal for writers. Orpheus is the archetypal poet and the archetypal musician; beyond that, he can be seen as the embodiment of ‘art’ in its widest sense, of all kinds of creative activity, all human attempts to find or create harmony and order in the world, through literature, music, art, philosophy, science, politics, or religion. In his unsuccessful attempt to reclaim his wife Eurydice from death, and his own death at the hands of an angry mob, he embodies the limitations of art in the face of mortality and human irrationality. On a less abstract level, the Orpheus legend is a wonderful story. Dramatically structured, movingly tragic and ironic, it invites constant retelling and constant reinterpretation of the motives and feelings of the two principal characters. 1
The legend in its classic form can be quickly summarised. Orpheus came from Thrace, the wild region to the north of classical Greece. His mother was Calliope, one of the nine Muses; his father was either Oeagrus, an otherwise obscure Thracian king, or the god Apollo. Orpheus sang and played on the lyre with such beauty and skill that he enchanted not only humans but even wild nature: animals and birds flocked to hear him, rivers paused in their courses, even trees and stones uprooted themselves and lumbered to follow his voice. He sailed with the Argonauts on the quest for the Golden Fleece, where he caused fish to leap out of the water to hear his music, and outsang the seductive songs of the Sirens.
