You have heard this story many times and may think you know it. Most tellings have the names right, but never have I found one which has the entire story. Sit and listen, and I will tell you the whole tale.
Calliope was the muse of heroic poetry. She had a son with the prince of Thrace. They named him Orpheus. Orpheus sang and played more sweetly than any other mortal. Perhaps he was the equal of Apollo himself, but Orpheus was wise enough never to say so. In time, he grew to manhood and fell in love.
Her name was Eurydice. It is not recorded what she was like or why she loved Orpheus. It is said his music could charm the trees and rocks to follow him, had he charmed Eurydice the same way? Why did Orpheus love her? Had he simply chosen the prettiest of his admirers? But it is certain that Orpheus loved her. Loved her with a purity and intensity that only poets and madmen know. She was not only the light of his world, but the world itself. He proposed. She accepted. The day of the wedding came. And she died.
She was walking in a meadow and a serpent bit into her heel. Some say she was walking with her bridesmaids, others, that she was fleeing the unwanted affections of a satyr. Some say it was mere accident that she stepped on the adder. Others that one of the gods, perhaps because a sacrifice was overlooked or that Apollo was threatened by Orpheus’ skill, set the snake in Eurydice’s path. Orpheus knew only that his love was dead.
His grief was of the same titanic scale as his love. He no longer ate, for the food had no taste. He no longer slept. All his dreams had died in that meadow on his wedding day. He no longer bathed or changed his clothes. What was the point? On his whole body there were only places that were clean, two thin lines that ran from his eyes to his chin. For he wept constantly. Her death had torn him open and an ocean of tears sprung from the wound. Worst, Orpheus no longer played. What was there to sing of?
He wandered aimlessly until he came to a river. As he watched the water rushed past, Orpheus thought of the Styx and his love on the other bank. What was left for him in this world? He began wading into the river. If his love was in Hades, he must follow her. When the water was to waist, Orpheus stopped. Heracles and Theseus had entered the underworld alive and returned. He was of divine blood. Why couldn’t he do the same? He would stand before Hades himself and win back the life of his love. Orpheus began searching for a gateway to the realm of the dead.
He still did not eat or sleep or wash. He did not want to take any time from his search. But, he no longer wept and he began to play again, songs of love and great trials. Once again, the stories disagree on where Orpheus found the entrance he sought, but he found it. He descended the dark stairway for hours, or perhaps days. Orpheus stood on the bank of the Styx. Charon, sometimes a withered man and sometimes a skeleton, ferried him across. Did Orpheus pay with the golden bough, mistletoe, as Aneas did? Was his song alone payment enough for Charon? For the Boatman did not often encounter beauty in the grey gloom of Hades. Orpheus played and Charon rowed until they came to the far shore.
Cerberus growled out of his three mouths at seeing a living man standing before the iron gate of Hades. Orpheus played and the dread dog whined contentedly and lay down at his feet. Orpheus walked through the gate. He walked past the tortures of Tartarus. He walked through fields of asphodel, the pale ghosts of flowers that grow only in the underworld. He walked until he came to the thrones of Hades and Persephone, king and queen of the underworld, rulers of the dead.
Orpheus sang. The words are recorded elsewhere, but they are of no importance. He could have sung the menu from the last inn he’d eaten at, or the alphabet. He could have sung a song with no words at all. It was his skill, his unequalled gift at music, that mattered. He sung and the sufferers in Tartarus forgot their pain. He sung and all the dead listened. He sung and Persephone wept. He sung and dark Hades, himself wept to hear it. He sung and the Furies, made only as vessels of the gods’ anger, left off their duties and wept. Their tears were of blood, but they were tears all the same. Orpheus sang of his love and his grief and he alone did not weep.
When he had finished, he looked nervously into Hades’ eyes. Love was not unknown to Hades. He had stolen Persephone out of love. Whether Persephone ever loved Hades no one says, but she sat in a throne beside his and was his wife. Hades dried his unseemly tears and spoke to Orpheus. He could have his love back. She would follow silently behind him as he returned to the world of the living. But, if Orpheus looked back even once on his climb out of Hades’ realm, she would have to descend to Tartarus again. Further, Orpheus would not be allowed to return to the land of the dead while he still lived. He had already been here one time too many. Orpheus thanked Hades, turned and left.
The climb was long. As he walked, doubt grew in his mind. Was she really behind him? He called out. There was no answer. He listened for footsteps. There were none. Had Hades lied to him, angry over the tears Orpheus had made him shed? Had he simply wanted to get rid of an unwelcome visitor? Had he lied to Orpheus simply to laugh at him when he found himself alone in world above? Or had he told the truth? Hades’ kingdom was full of souls who had taken their own lives because of love. He must know something of love. He had defied Zeus for his love of Persephone. He must understand how Orpheus suffered. Orpheus walked through the darkness. Was the climb up taking longer than his descent or did it only seem that way? At last, he could see daylight ahead. All the doubts returned, stronger than before. He knew he must not look. He knew also, that he would look.
He began to turn. Terror gripped him. Still, he knew he would look. In that instant, Orpheus knew what he must do. Frantically he raised his hands and tore out his eyes. Why would he do such a thing? To understand that, you must understand love. If Eurydice was with him, what an infinitely small sacrifice sight was. A life lived in darkness with her was still a life of ecstasy. If she was not with him, what was there to see in the world? If she was not with him, why continue living at all? If Hades had lied to him, he would end his life and join Eurydice in the land of the dead. Suicide could be committed just as well by a blind man.
Orpheus turned. He turned, but without eyes he could not look. Blood ran down his face and Orpheus felt relief. He groped his way up the remaining stairs. He smiled when his hand found the doorway to the world of the living. There was blood on his hands and on his face. Blood stained his tunic. And he smiled. Orpheus put one foot carefully on to the earth. He could smell flowers and growing things, hear the birds and feel sunlight on his face. He took another cautious step and fell. Arms caught him. Then, Eurydice was kissing him and holding him tightly. She never let him go.