The earliest mentions of a supreme musician called Orpheus date back to the sixth century BCE, and in the fourth century BCE the philosopher Plato commented specifically on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Today, the main sources for the myth are Virgil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Apollo gave his son Orpheus a lyre of gold and tortoise shell. Orpheus mastered the instrument so completely that no one and nothing could resist his playing and singing: The animals of the forest gathered around him, the trees bent toward him, and the streams and rivers came out of their beds to greet him.
Orpheus fell head over heels for Eurydice, and she readily returned his love. Hymen, the god of marriage ceremonies, presided over their wedding, but, in a terrible omen, his torch spluttered and spat and marred the feast with bitter fumes.
Eurydice ventured into the nearby woods, where the shepherd Aristaeus espied her dancing with the dryads. Enraptured by the scene, he began to chase her. As she beat back through the bushes, she tripped on a nest of vipers and died from a snakebite to the heel.
Orpheus sang of his grief from earth to heaven, moving the gods and all of creation. So little did life seem without Eurydice that he resolved to go and see her in Hades—and, if possible, return her to the land of the living.
Equipped with his lyre, Orpheus entered Hades through a cave of poisonous vapours and, by his song, made it unmolested to the palace of King Hades and Queen Persephone. His lament entranced the ferryman Charon and the ordinarily fierce........