created 2025-02-15, & modified, =this.modified
Orpheus falls in love with the beautiful nymph Eurydice, and the two make plans to wed. But on their wedding day, Eurydice steps on a snake, which bites her.
She is killed, and Orpheus is stricken with terrible and all-consuming grief.
Disconsolate, Orpheus finds a cave which leads to the Underworld and follows Eurydice. Armed only with his lyre and his beautiful voice, Orpheus makes his way past every terrifying danger the underworld holds to the crossing of the river Styx.
Charmed by his music, Charon the boatman carries him across the river, and Orpheus meets Hades, the god of the Underworld and his wife, Persephone.
His music softens the hearts of Hades and Persephone, who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety, as soon as he reached the upper world, he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.
The devastated Orpheus attempts to return to Hades and rescue her again, but this time Charon refuses to carry him across the river.
He sits on the shore starving, hoping for death, so that he may join Eurydice. But the gods will not let him die.
Reluctantly, he returns to the upper world, finding solace only in his music. He spent the rest of his days scorning women, not willing to love another so as to stay true to the memory of Eurydice. He wandered the earth before being torn apart by the women of Thrace, who were angry at him for spurning their love and companionship.
They threw his head into a river, and it kept on singing all the way to the sea.
