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In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece,Apollodorus, 1.9.16. and descended into the Greek underworld to recover his lost wife, Eurydice.
The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in ), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the of Dionysus, who got tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or allusion to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.Geoffrey Miles, Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology (Routledge, 1999), p. 54.
For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries.Pausanias, 2.30.2 He was credited with the composition of a number of works, among which are a number of now-lost theogonies, including the theogony commented upon in the Derveni papyrus, as well as extant works such the Orphic Hymns, the Orphic Argonautica, and the Orphic Lithica. Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as .
Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early 6th century AD, gave the unlikely etymology meaning "best voice", "Oraia-phonos".Miles, Geoffrey. Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 57.
Greeks of the Classical Greece venerated Orpheus as the greatest of all poets and musicians; it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus perfected it. Poets such as Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus's music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance,Apollodorus, 1.3.2; Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1212 and The Bacchae, 562; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11: "with his songs, Orpheus, the bard of Thrace, allured the trees, the savage animals, and even the insensate rocks, to follow him." and divert the course of rivers.
Orpheus was one of the handful of Others to brave the nekyia were Odysseus, Theseus and Heracles; Perseus also overcame Medusa in a chthonic setting. to visit the Greek underworld and return; his music and song had power even over Hades. The earliest known reference to this descent to the underworld is the painting by Polygnotus (5th century BC) described by Pausanias (2nd century AD), where no mention is made of Eurydice. Euripides and Plato both refer to the story of his descent to recover his wife, but do not mention her name; a contemporary relief (about 400 BC) shows Orpheus and his wife with Hermes. The elegiac poet Hermesianax called her Agriope; and the first mention of her name in literature is in the Lament for Bion (1st century BC).
Some sources credit Orpheus with further gifts to humankind: medicine, which is more usually under the auspices of Asclepius (Aesculapius) or Apollo; writing,A single literary epitaph, attributed to the sophist Alcidamas, credits Orpheus with the invention of writing. See Ivan Mortimer Linforth, "Two Notes on the Legend of Orpheus", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 62, (1931):5–17. which is usually credited to Cadmus; and agriculture, where Orpheus assumes the Eleusinian role of Triptolemus as giver of Demeter's knowledge to humankind. Orpheus was an augur and seer; he practiced magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus,Apollodorus, 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria." and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. Pindar and Apollonius of RhodesApollonius, Argonautica passim place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Argonautica. Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban.Apollodorus, Library and Epitome, 2.4.9. This Linus was a brother of Orpheus; he came to Thebes and became a Theban. He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, and to have made lions and tigers obedient to him. Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and civilization to savages.
Strabo (64 BC – c. AD 24) presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a village close to Mount Olympus.Strabo, 7.7: "At the base of Olympus is a city Dium. And it has a village near by, Pimpleia. Here lived Orpheus, the Ciconian, it is said – a wizard who at first collected money from his music, together with his soothsaying and his celebration of the orgies connected with the mystic initiatory rites, but soon afterwards thought himself worthy of still greater things and procured for himself a throng of followers and power. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. And near here, also, is Leibethra." "Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him." He made money as a musician and "wizard" – Strabo uses αγυρτεύοντα (agurteúonta),Gregory Nagy, Archaic Period ( Greek Literature, Volume 2), , p. 46. also used by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus to characterize Tiresias as a trickster with an excessive desire for possessions. Αγύρτης (agúrtēs) most often meant 'charlatan'Index in Eustathii commentarios in Homeri Iliadem et Odysseam by Matthaeus Devarius, p. 8. and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Ancient Egypt who considered Orpheus a μάγευσε (mágeuse), i.e., magician.Pausanias, 6.20.18: "A man of Egypt said that Pelops received something from Amphion the Theban and buried it where is what they call Taraxippus, adding that it was the buried thing which frightened the mares of Oenomaus, as well as those of every charioteer since. This Egyptian thought that Amphion and the Thracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it was through their enchantments that the beasts came to Orpheus, and the stones came to Amphion for the building of the wall. The most probable of the stories in my opinion makes Taraxippus a surname of Horse Poseidon."
"Orpheus ... is repeatedly referred to by Euripides, in whom we find the first allusion to the connection of Orpheus with Dionysus and the infernal regions: he speaks of him as related to the Muses ( Rhesus 944, 946); mentions the power of his song over rocks, trees, and wild beasts ( Medea 543, Iphigenia in Aulis 1211, The Bacchae 561, and a jocular allusion in Cyclops 646); refers to his charming the infernal powers ( Alcestis 357); connects him with Bacchanalian orgies ( Hippolytus 953); ascribes to him the origin of sacred mysteries ( Rhesus 943), and places the scene of his activity among the forests of Olympus ( The Bacchae 561.)" "Euripides also brought Orpheus into his play Hypsipyle, which dealt with the Lemnian deeds of the Argonautic voyage; Orpheus there acts as coxswain, and later as guardian in Thrace of Jason's children by Hypsipyle."
"He is mentioned once only, but in an important passage, by Aristophanes ( The Frogs 1032), who enumerates, as the oldest poets, Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and Homer, and makes Orpheus the teacher of religious initiations and of abstinence from murder ..."
"Plato ( Apology, Protagoras), ... frequently refers to Orpheus, his followers, and his works. He calls him the son of Oeagrus ( Symposium), mentions him as a musician and inventor (Ion and Laws bk 3.), refers to the miraculous power of his lyre ( Protagoras), and gives a singular version of the story of his descent into Hades: the gods, he says, imposed upon the poet, by showing him only a phantasm of his lost wife, because he had not the courage to die, like Alcestis, but contrived to enter Hades alive, and, as a further punishment for his cowardice, he met his death at the hands of women ( Symposium 179d)."
"Earlier than the literary references is a sculptured representation of Orpheus with the ship Argo, found at Delphi, said to be of the sixth century BC."
Orpheus is said to have established the worship of Hecate in Aegina.Pausanias, Corinth, 2.30.1 2: "Of the gods, the Aeginetans worship most Hecate, in whose honor every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thracian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron, and it has one face and one body. It was Alcamenes, in my opinion, who first made three images of Hecate attached to one another, a figure called by the Athenians Epipurgidia (on the Tower); it stands beside the temple of the Wingless Victory." In Laconia Orpheus is said to have brought the worship of Demeter ChthoniaPausanias, Laconia, 3.14.1,5: "… but the wooden image of Thetis is guarded in secret. The cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Lower World) the Lacedaemonians say was handed on to them by Orpheus, but in my opinion it was because of the sanctuary in Hermione that the Lacedaemonians also began to worship Demeter Chthonia. The Spartans have also a sanctuary of Serapis, the newest sanctuary in the city, and one of Zeus surnamed Olympian." and that of the Κόρες Σωτείρας (Kóres Sōteíras; 'Saviour Maidens').Pausanias, Laconia, 3.13.1: "Opposite the Olympian Aphrodite the Lacedaemonians have a temple of the Saviour Maid. Some say that it was made by Orpheus the Thracian, others by Abairis when he had come from the Hyperboreans." Also in Taygetus a wooden image of Orpheus was said to have been kept by Pelasgians in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian Demeter.Pausanias, Laconia, 3.20.1,5: "Between Taletum and Euoras is a place they name Therae, where they say Leto from the Peaks of Taygetus … is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian. Here according to the Lacedaemonian story Heracles was hidden by Asclepius while he was being healed of a wound. In the sanctuary is a wooden image of Orpheus, a work, they say, of Pelasgians."
According to Diodorus Siculus, Musaeus of Athens was the son of Orpheus.Diodorus Siculus, 4.25.1–2
The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first introduces the name of Aristaeus (by the time of Virgil's Georgics, the myth has Aristaeus chasing Eurydice when she was bitten by a serpent) and the tragic outcome.M. Owen Lee, Virgil as Orpheus: A Study of the Georgics, State University of New York Press, Albany (1996), p. 9. Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus's visit to the underworld in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, Symposium 179d the infernal gods only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. In fact, Plato's representation of Orpheus is that of a coward, as instead of choosing to die in order to be with the one he loved, he instead mocked the gods by trying to go to Greek underworld to bring her back alive. Since his love was not "true"—he did not want to die for love—he was actually punished by the gods, first by giving him only the apparition of his former wife in the underworld, and then by being killed by women. In Ovid's account, however, Eurydice's death by a snake bite is incurred while she was dancing with on her wedding day. Virgil wrote in his poem that Dryads wept from Orithyia and Maritsa up to the land of the Getae (north east Danube valley) and even describes him wandering into Hyperborea and Tanais (ancient Greek city in the Don river delta) due to his grief.
The story of Eurydice may actually be a late addition to the Orpheus myths. In particular, the name Eurudike ("she whose justice extends widely") recalls cult-titles attached to Persephone. According to the theories of poet Robert Graves, the myth may have been derived from another Orpheus legend, in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, Penguin Books Ltd., London (1955), Volume 1, Chapter 28, "Orpheus", p. 115.
The myth theme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hecate under Medea's guidance,Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, book III: "Let no footfall or barking of dogs cause you to turn around, lest you ruin everything", Medea warns Jason; after the dread rite, "The son of Aison was seized by fear, but even so he did not turn round..." (Richard Hunter, translator). is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. More directly, the story of Orpheus is similar to the ancient Greek tales of Persephone captured by Hades and similar stories of Adonis captive in the underworld. However, the developed form of the Orpheus myth was entwined with the Orphic mystery cults and, later in Rome, with the development of Mithraism and the cult of Sol Invictus.
]]Here his death is analogous with that of Pentheus, who was also torn to pieces by Maenads; and it has been speculated that the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or even an incarnation of Dionysus.Mark P. O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology, p. 279. Both made similar journeys into Hades, and Zagreus suffered an identical death. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, volume 88, p. 211 Pausanias writes that Orpheus was buried in Dion and that he met his death there.Pausanias, 9.30.1 A more commonly accepted death of Orpheus was that after returning from the Underworld, without Eurydice, Orpheus fell into a great depression. Orpheus would only play sad music on his lyre, and took no interest in the *Maenads, finding them a painful reminder of his past. Orpheus instead took romantic interest in men, which drove the Maenads to the point of insanity, and one day when they were drunk they tore him apart. Orpheus's head sailed down the river to distant *Lesbos where it there lived on with the gift of prophecy. Description of Greece: Boeotia], 9.30.1. The Macedonians who dwell in the district below Mount Pieria and the city of Dium say that it was here that Orpheus met his end at the hands of the women. Going from Dium along the road to the mountain, and advancing twenty stades, you come to a pillar on the right surmounted by a stone urn, which according to the natives contains the bones of Orpheus. He writes that the river Helicon sank underground when the women that killed Orpheus tried to wash off their blood-stained hands in its waters.Pausanias, Boeotia 9.30.1. There is also a river called Helicon. After a course of seventy-five stades the stream hereupon disappears under the earth. After a gap of about twenty-two stades the water rises again, and under the name of Baphyra instead of Helicon flows into the sea as a navigable river. The people of Dium say that at first this river flowed on land throughout its course. But, they go on to say, the women who killed Orpheus wished to wash off in it the blood-stains, and thereat the river sank underground, so as not to lend its waters to cleanse manslaughter Other legends claim that Orpheus became a follower of Dionysus and spread his cult across the land. In this version of the legend, it is said that Orpheus was torn to shreds by the women of Thrace for his inattention.
Ovid recounts that Orpheus
Feeling spurned by Orpheus for taking only male lovers (eromenoi), the Ciconian women, followers of Dionysus, "by the Ciconian women". first threw sticks and stones at him as he played, but his music was so beautiful even the rocks and branches refused to hit him. Enraged, the women tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies. Book XI. In Albrecht Dürer's drawing of Orpheus's death, based on an original, now lost, by Andrea Mantegna, a ribbon high in the tree above him is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran ("Orpheus, the first pederasty").
His head, still singing mournful songs, floated along with his lyre down the River Maritsa into the sea, after which the winds and waves carried them to the island of Lesbos, Carlos Parada "His head fell into the sea and was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos where the Lesbians buried it, and for having done this the Lesbians have the reputation of being skilled in music." at the city of Methymna; there, the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa;Recently a cave was identified as the oracle of Orpheus nearby the modern village of Antissa; see Harissis H. V. et al. "The Spelios of Antissa; The oracle of Orpheus in Lesvos" Archaiologia kai Technes 2002; 83:68–73 ( article in Greek with English abstract) there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo.Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, [25] In addition to the people of Lesbos, Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia consulted the oracle, and his reputation spread as far as Babylon.
Orpheus's lyre was carried to heaven by the , and was placed Lyra. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at LeibethraMarcele Detienne, The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context, , p. 161 below Mount Olympus, where the sang over his grave. After the river Sys floodedPausanias, Boeotia, 9.30.1 11 Immediately when night came the god sent heavy rain, and the river Sys (Boar), one of the torrents about Olympus, on this occasion threw down the walls of Libethra, overturning sanctuaries of gods and houses of men, and drowning the inhabitants and all the animals in the city. When Libethra was now a city of ruin, the Macedonians in Dium, according to my friend of Larisa, carried the bones of Orpheus to their own country. Leibethra, the Macedonians took his bones to Dion. Orpheus's soul returned to the underworld, to the fields of the Blessed, where he was reunited at last with his beloved Eurydice.
Another legend places his tomb at Dion, near Pydna in Macedon. In another version of the myth, Orpheus travels to Aornum in Thesprotia, Epirus to an old oracle for the dead. In the end Orpheus commits suicide from his grief unable to find Eurydice.Pausanias, Boeotia, 9.30.1. Others have said that his wife died before him, and that for her sake he came to Aornum in Thesprotis, where of old was an oracle of the dead. He thought, they say, that the soul of Eurydice followed him, but turning round he lost her, and committed suicide for grief. The Thracians say that such nightingales as nest on the grave of Orpheus sing more sweetly and louder than others.
"Others said that he was the victim of a thunderbolt."Freeman 1946, p. 3.
In addition to serving as a storehouse of mythological data along the lines of Hesiod's Theogony, Orphic poetry was recited in mystery-rites and purification rituals. Plato in particular tells of a class of vagrant beggar-priests who would go about offering purifications to the rich, a clatter of books by Orpheus and Musaeus in tow.Plato. The Republic 364c–d. Those who were especially devoted to these rituals and poems often practiced vegetarianism and abstention from sex, and refrained from eating eggs and beans—which came to be known as the Orphikos bios, or "Orphic way of life".Moore, p. 56: "the use of eggs and beans was forbidden, for these articles were associated with the worship of the dead". W. K. C. Guthrie wrote that Orpheus was the founder of mystery religions and the first to reveal to men the meanings of the initiation rites.Guthrie, pp. 17–18. "As founder of mystery-religions, Orpheus was first to reveal to men the meaning of the rites of initiation (teletai). We read of this in both Plato and Aristophanes (Aristophanes, Frogs, 1032; Plato, Republic, 364e, a passage which suggests that literary authority was made to take the responsibility for the rites)". Guthrie goes on to write about "This less worthy but certainly popular side of Orphism is represented for us again by the charms or incantations of Orpheus which we may also read of as early as the fifth century. Our authority is Euripides, a reference in the Alcestis of Euripides to certain Thracian tablets which "the voice of Orpheus had inscribed" with pharmaceutical lore. Scholia, commenting on the passage, says that there exist on Haemus Mons certain writings of Orpheus on tablets. We have already noticed the 'charm on the Thracian tablets' in the Alcestis and in Cyclops one of the lazy and frightened Satyrs, unwilling to help Odysseus in the task of driving the burning stake into the single eye of the giant, exclaims: 'But I know a spell of Orpheus, a fine one, which will make the brand step up of its own accord to burn this one-eyed son of Earth' (Euripides, Cyclops 646 = Kern, test. 83)." There is also a reference, not mentioning Orpheus by name, in the Pseudo--Platonic Axiochus, where it is said that the fate of the soul in Hades is described on certain bronze tablets which two seers had brought to Delos from the land of the .
A number of Greek religious poems in were also attributed to Orpheus, as they were to similar miracle-working figures, like Bakis, Musaeus, Abaris, Aristeas, Epimenides, and the Sibyl. Of this vast literature, only two works survived whole: the Orphic Hymns, a set of 87 poems, possibly composed at some point in the second or third century, and the epic Orphic Argonautica, composed somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries. Earlier Orphic literature, which may date back as far as the sixth century BC, survives only in papyrus fragments or in quotations. Some of the earliest fragments may have been composed by Onomacritus.Freeman 1948, p. 1.
The Derveni papyrus, found in Derveni, Macedonia (Greece) in 1962, contains a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem in hexameters, a theogony concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, written in the second half of the fifth century BC. The papyrus dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript.
Subsequent operatic and musical interpretations include:
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