Eurydice

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Eurydice

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Eurydice (Eýrýdícè, ????d???) (yur-ID-ih-see) was an oak nymph or a sweet maiden. She was the wife of Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary figure, probably from Thracian origin, venerated by the Greeks and Thracians of the Classical age as a chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes....
. Orpheus loved her dearly; on their wedding day, Orpheus played songs filled with happiness as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, a satyr

Satyr

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Orpheus

Satyr

In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus ? "satyresses" were a late invention of poets ? that roamed the woods and mountains....
had seen her and pursued her. Eurydice stepped on a snake and fell to the ground. The venomous snake had bitten her, leaving Eurydice dead. Distraught, Orpheus played and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. In their saddened states, they told him to travel to the Underworld

Greek underworld

The Greek underworld is a general term used to describe the various realms of Greek mythology which were believed to lie beneath the earth or beyond the horizon....
and retrieve her. Orpheus did so, and by his music softened the hearts of Hades

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
and Persephone

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Greek Underworld, the kore , and the parthenogenesis daughter of Demeter and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus....
, his singing so sweet that even the Erinyes

Erinyes

In Greek mythology the Erinyes or Eumenides or Furies in Roman mythology were female, chthonic deities of revenge or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead....
wept. In another version, Orpheus played his lyre to put the guardian of Hades, Cerberus

Cerberus

Cerberus is the name given to the entity which, in Greek mythology and Roman mythology, is a multi-headed dog which guards the gates of Hades, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping....
, to sleep. It was then granted that Eurydice be allowed to return with him to the world of the living. But the condition was attached that he should walk in front of her and not look back until he had reached the upper world. In his anxiety, he broke his promise, and Eurydice vanished again from his sight—this time forever.

The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
, who first introduces the name of Aristaeus

Aristaeus

A minor god in Greek mythology, which we read largely through Athenian writers, Aristaeus or Aristaios , "ever close follower of the flocks", was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; he was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene ....
in his work Georgics

Georgics

The Georgics, published in 29 BCE, is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil. Its ostensible subject is rural life and farming. It is generally described as Didacticism....
(29BC). Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus' visit to the underworld; according to Phaedrus in Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's Symposium

Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
, the infernal gods only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. Plato's Phaedrus also accuses Orpheus of cowardice for not being prepared to die for Eurydice; it is possible that Plato knew a significantly different legend.

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been depicted in a number of works by famous artists, including Titian

Titian

File:Tizian 090.jpg Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, born 1473/1490 , died 27 August 1576, better known as Titian , was the leading painter of the 16th-century Venice school of the Italian Renaissance....
, Peter Paul Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality....
, Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was a French Painting in the Classicism style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color....
exhibited in Pompidou Centre; Paris (Face à l'Histore, 1996), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam ("Kabinet", 1997) and The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerpen ("Gorge(l)", 2007), has inspired ample writings in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, art and feminist theory

Feminist theory

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophy, ground. It encompasses work done in a broad variety of disciplines, prominently including the approaches to women's roles and lives and feminist politics in anthropology and sociology, psychoanalysis, economics, women's studies and gender studies, feminist literary...
. It has also been retold as an opera

Euridice (opera)

Euridice is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. First performed in Florence on October 6 1600, it has a libretto written by Ottavio Rinuccini, based on Ovid's Metamorphoses ....
by Monteverdi, Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri was an Italy composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance music and Baroque music styles, and is often called the inventor of opera....
, C W Gluck and Yevstigney Fomin

Yevstigney Fomin

Yevstigney Ipat'yevich Fomin was a Russian opera composer of the 18th century....
, a play

Eurydice (play)

Eurydice is a play by Sarah Ruhl which retells the myth of Orpheus from the perspective of Eurydice, his wife. The story focuses on Eurydice's choice to return to earth with Orpheus or to stay in Hades with her father ....
by Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl is an United States playwright. She studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University , did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford, and currently lives in New York....
, and in the comic book The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard Gaiman is an England author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, comics, and films. His notable works include The Sandman comic series, Stardust , American Gods and Coraline....
. It also forms the basis for the 1967 song "From the Underworld" by The Herd

The Herd (UK band)

The Herd were an England pop music band , that came to prominence in the late 1960s. They are most famous for launching the career of Peter Frampton....
and poem "The Years Go Fast and the Days Go Slow" by James McCoy. "Eurydice (don't follow)" is also a song by the band the Cruxshadows.

Eurydice

See also