Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein, Orpheus and Eurydice, 1806, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Charles-François Lebœuf, Dying Eurydice (1822), marble

Eurydice (pron.: /jʊˈrɪdɨsiː/; Εὐρυδίκη, Eurydikē) in Classical Greek mythology, was an oak nymph or one of the daughters of Apollo (the god of light). She was the wife of Orpheus, who tried to bring her back from the dead with his enchanting music.

Canonical story [edit]

Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, a satyr saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a viper, dying instantly. Distraught, Orpheus played and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and deities wept and told him to travel to the Underworld to retrieve her, which he gladly did. After his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, his singing so sweet that even the Erinyes wept, he was allowed to take her back to the world of the living. In another version, Orpheus played his lyre to put Cerberus, the guardian of Hades, to sleep, after which Eurydice was allowed to return with Orpheus to the world of the living. Either way, the condition was attached that he must walk in front of her and not look back until both had reached the upper world. Soon he began to doubt that she was there, however, and that Hades had deceived him. Just as he reached the portals of Hades and daylight, he turned around to gaze on her face, and because Eurydice had not yet crossed the threshold, she vanished back into the Underworld. When Orpheus later was killed by the Maenads at the orders of Dionysus, his soul ended up in the Underworld where he was reunited with Eurydice.

The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first introduces the name of Aristaeus and the tragic outcome.^[1] Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus' visit to the underworld in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium,^[2] the infernal deities only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. Ovid says that Eurydice's death was not caused by fleeing from Aristaeus, but by dancing with naiads on her wedding day. In fact, Plato's representation of Orpheus is that of a coward; instead of choosing to die in order to be with the one he loved, instead, he mocked the deities by trying to go to Hades to get her back alive. Since his love was not "true" — meaning he was not willing to die for it — he was punished by the dieties,^{[citation needed]} first by giving him only the apparition of his former wife in the underworld, and then by being killed by women.

The story of Eurydice may be a late addition to the Orpheus myths. In particular, the name Eurudike ("she whose justice extends widely") recalls cult-titles attached to Persephone. The myth may have been derived from another Orpheus legend in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.^{[clarification needed][3]}

The story of Eurydice has strong universal cultural parallels from the Japanese myth of Izanagi and Izanami, the Mayan myth of Itzamna and Ixchel, the Indian myth of Savitri and Satyavan, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent to the underworld, to the Biblical story of Lot and his wife.

Works of art [edit]

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been depicted in a number of works by artists, including Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, and recently, Bracha Ettinger whose series, Eurydice, was exhibited in the Pompidou Centre, (Face à l'Histoire, 1996); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Kabinet, 1997) and The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerpen (Gorge(l), 2007). The story has inspired ample writings in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, art, and feminist theory.

In addition, the myth has been retold in operas by Monteverdi, Jacopo Peri, Gluck, Yevstigney Fomin, and Harrison Birtwistle (see List of Orphean operas). The myth is also the basis of Anais Mitchell's folk opera Hadestown. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice features prominently in the 1967 album Reflections by Manos Hadjidakis and the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album The Lyre of Orpheus as well as The New York Rock and Roll Ensemble song "Orpheus" and the 1967 song "From the Underworld" by The Herd. A Sarasota-based folk group, Passerine, features it in their song entitled, (Love is) Myth or Madness. The band She & Him has a song entitled "Don't Look Back", which references the story. "Eurydice (Don't Follow)" is a song by the band The Crüxshadows. There are also songs written by Sleepthief and Wayne Shorter that are entitled "Eurydice".

Additionally, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is the basis of a play by Sarah Ruhl, the comic book The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and the poem "The Years Go Fast and the Days Go Slow" by James McCoy. The story inspired the 1959 critically acclaimed film Black Orpheus (Portuguese: Orfeu Negro) made in Brazil by Marcel Camus. The freeware game Don't Look Back is a modern interpretation of the story.

The myth also inspired the American playwright Tennessee Williams' 1957 drama Orpheus Descending. It tells the story of a guitar-playing drifter named Val, a young man with a snakeskin jacket, a questionable past, and undeniable animal-erotic appeal. He gets a job in the dry goods store run by a middle-aged woman named Lady, whose elderly husband is dying. Lady has a past and passions of her own. She finds herself attracted to Val and to the possibility of new life he seems to offer. It is a tempting antidote to her loveless marriage and boring, small-town life. The play describes the awakening of passion, love, and life – as well as its tragic consequences for Val and Lady.

See also [edit]

• Valsa de Euridice, a song by Vinicius de Moraes
• Euridice, an opera by Jacopo Peri
• Orphée, directed by Jean Cocteau (1949)
• Orfeo ed Euridice, an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck
• Eurydice, a play by Sarah Ruhl
• Orfeu Negro, a 1959 adaptation of the classic myth, filmed in Brazil
• L'Orfeo, the earliest extant opera, from 1607, by Monteverdi
• (Love is) Myth or Madness from the eponymous album, Passerine, a Sarasota-based folk group
• The Lyre of Orpheus, an album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Orpheus, a song by Manos Hadjidakis and The New York Rock and Roll Ensemble
• Eurydice, a section of Écho d'Orphée, Pour Pierre Schaeffer composed by Pierre Henry.
• Eurydice, a play by Jean Anouilh
• Euridice, a song from the album Focus II (Moving Waves) by Focus
• Eurydice, a song from the album Echoes and Artifacts by The Crüxshadows
• The Eurydice Project, written by D.J. Whistler (2007)
• Hadestown, an 2010 ensemble album by Anais Mitchell, featuring Mitchell as Eurydice, Justin Vernon as Orpheus and Ani DiFranco among others, retelling the myth as a 'folk opera' in Depression era America
• Eurydice by Wayne Shorter and recorded by Weather Report on their 1971 album, Weather Report.
• Orpheus and Eurydice: A Myth Underground, theatre production written by Molly Davies with music by James Johnston, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for the National Youth Theatre at the Old Vic Tunnels, directed by James Dacre (2011)
• Tampa based indoor percussion group Attack Percussion presented their show "eurydice" for competition in 2012

References [edit]

Sources [edit]

• Ovid, Metamorphoses 10
• The Library 1.3.2
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.30
• Virgil, Georgics 4.453
• Plato, Symposium
• Sleepthief, "Eurydice" featuring Jody Quine"
• Griselda Pollock, "Abandoned at the Mouth of Hell". In: Looking Back to the Future. G&B Arts. ISBN 90-5701-132-8.
• Judith Butler, "Bracha's Eurydice". In: Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: Eurydice Series. Edited by Catherine de Zegher and Brian Massumi. Drawing Papers n.24. The Drawing center, NY, 2001. Reprinted in: Theory, Culture and Society, 21(1), 2004. ISSN 0263-2764.
• Emmanuel Levinas in conversation with Bracha L. Ettinger, "What would Eurydice Say?" (1991–1993). Reprinted in 1997. Reprinted in Athena: Philosophical Studies, Volume 2, 2006. ISSN 1822-5047.
• Dorota Glowaka, "Lyotard and Eurydice". In: Margret Grebowicz (ed.),Gender after Lyotard. NY: Suny Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7914-6956-9
• Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "Eurydice and her Doubles. Painting after Auschwitz", in: Artworking 1985-1999, Amsterdam: Ludion, 2000. ISBN 90-5544-283-6.
• Carol Ann Duffy, "Eurydice". In: The World's Wife. ISBN 978-0-330-37222-0.

Further reading [edit]

• Griselda Pollock. "Orphée et Eurydice: le temps/l'éspace/le regard traumatique." In: Julia Kristeva et al., eds. Guerre et paix des sexes. Hachette, 2009.
• Jennie Hirsh, and Isabelle D. Wallace, eds. Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7546-6974-6.
• Irene Masing-Delic, "Replication or Recreation? The Eurydice Motif in Nabokovʼs Russian Oeuvre," Russian Literature, 70,3 (2011), 391-414.

External links [edit]

• Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (ca 130 images of Eurydice)

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