Hymen, god of marriage wrapped in his saffron-colored cloak, left the wedding of Iphis and Ianthe and made his way through the vast tracts of air to the shores of the Thracian Cicones; he came at the call of Orpheus but in vain, for, although he was to be sure present at the marriage of Orpheus to Eurydice, he did not smile nor bless the pair nor give good omens. Even the torch he held kept sputtering with smoke that drew tears and would not bum despite vigorous shaking. The outcome was even more serious than this ominous beginning. For while the new bride was wandering through the grass accompanied by a band of Naiads she was bitten on the ankle by a serpent and collapsed in death. After Orpheus, the bard of the Thracian mountains, had wept his fill to the breezes of the upper world he dared to descend to the Styx by the entrance near Taenarus so that he might rouse even the shades. Past the tenuous multitudes of ghosts beyond the grave, he approached Persephone and her lord, who rule this unlovely realm of shadows, and sang his song as he plucked the strings of his lyre: "0 deities of the world below the earth, into which all of us who are mortal return, if it is right and you allow me to utter the truth, laying aside evasion and falsehood, I did not come down to see the realms of Tartarus or to bind the triple neck, bristling with serpents, of the monstrous hound descended from Medusa; the cause of my journey is my wife; she stepped on a snake and its venom coursing through her veins stole from her the bloom of her years. I wanted to be able to endure and I admit that I have tried; but Love has conquered. He is a god who is well known in the world above; I suspect that he is famous even here as well (although I do not know for sure); if the story of the rape of long ago is not a lie, Love also brought you two together. "By these places full' of fear, by this yawning Chaos, and by the silent vastness of this kingdom, reweave I pray the thread of Eurydice's destiny cut off too soon! We pay everything to you and after tarrying but a little while we hasten more slowly or more quickly to this one abode. All of us direct our course here, this is our very last home, and you hold the longest sway over the human race. Eurydice too, when she in her ripe age has gone through the just allotment of her years, will fall under your power;

I ask as a gift her return to me. If the Fates refuse this reprieve for my wife, it is sure that I do not wish to return either. Take joy in the death of us both!" As he made this plea and sang his words to the tune of his lyre, the bloodless spirits wept; Tantalus stopped reaching for the receding waters, the wheel of Ixion stopped in wonder, the vultures ceased tearing at the liver of Tityus, the Danaid descendants of Belus left their urns empty and you, 0 Sisyphus, sat on your stone. Then for the first time, the story has it, the cheeks of the Eumenides were moist with tears as they were overcome by his song, and the king who rules these lower regions and his regal wife could not endure his pleas or their refusal. They called Eurydice; she was among the more recent shades and she approached, her step slow because of her wound. Thracian Orpheus took her and with her the command that he not turn back his gaze until he had left the groves of Avernus, or the gift would be revoked. Through the mute silence, they wrest their steep way, arduous, dark, and thick with black vapors. They were not far from the border of the world above; here frightened that she might not be well and yearning to see her with his own eyes, through love he turned and looked, and with his gaze she slipped away and down. He stretched out his arms, struggling to embrace and be embraced, but unlucky and unhappy he grasped nothing but the limp and yielding breezes. Now as Eurydice was dying for a second time she did not reproach her husband; for what complaint should she have except that she was loved?

She uttered for the very last time a farewell that barely reached his ears and fell back once more to the same place. At the second death of his wife Orpheus was stunned. . . . The ferryman kept Orpheus back as he begged in vain, wishing to cross over once again; yet he remained seated on the bank for seven days, unkempt and without food, the gift of Ceres; anxiety, deep grief, and tears were his nourishment as he bewailed the cruelty of the gods of Erebus. He then withdrew to the mountains of Thrace, Rhodope, and windswept Haemus. Three times the Titan sun had rounded out the year with the sign of watery Pisces, and Orpheus the while had fled from love with all women, either because of his previous woe or because he had made a pledge. Many women were seized with passion for union with the bard and many in anguish were repulsed. He was the originator for the Thracian peoples of turning to the love of young boys and of enjoying the brief spring of their youth and plucking its first flowers. . . . While the Thracian bard was inducing the woods, the rocks, and the hearts of the wild beasts 20 follow him, Ciconian women, their frenzied breasts clad in animal skins, spied Orpheus from the top of a hill as he was singing to his lyre. One of them, her hair tossing in the light breeze, exclaimed: "Ah look, here is the one who despises us." And she hurled her weapon wreathed with foliage straight at the face of Apollo's son as he sang, and it made its mark but did not wound. The weapon of another was a stone, which as it hurtled was overcome in mid-air by the harmony of voice and lyre and fell prone at his feet like a suppliant apologizing for so furious an assault. But their hostility grew more bold, and restraint was abandoned until the Fury of madness held absolute sway. All weapons would have been softened by his song, but the great clamor, the Phrygian flutes with their curved pipes, the drums, the pounding, and the Bacchic shrieks drowned out the sound of his lyre.

Then at the last the stones that could not hear grew red with the blood of the poet. But first the Maenads seized the hordes of birds still spellbound by the singer's voice, the serpents, and the throng of beasts, all testimonies to the triumph of his song. And then they turned with bloody hands on Orpheus himself, like birds that throng together if at any time they see the owl of night abroad by day. They made for the bard, just as the stag about to die is prey for the dogs in the morning sand of the amphitheater, and they flung the verdant leafy thyrsus, not made for such deadly purpose. Some hurled clods of earth, others branches ripped from trees, still others stones. So that weapons might not be wanting for their fury, it happened that oxen were working the earth yoked to the ploughshare and nearby sturdy farmers were digging the hard fields with much sweat preparing for the harvest. When they saw the throng they fled, leaving behind the tools with which they worked. Hoes, heavy mattocks, and long rakes lay scattered through the empty fields. The madwomen snatched them up and after they had torn apart the oxen that threatened with their horns, they rushed back again to mete out the poet's fate. In their sacrilege they destroyed him as he stretched out his hands and spoke then for the first time in vain with a voice that touched no one. And through that mouth, which was heard, god knows, by stones and understood by bestial senses, his soul breathed forth receding on the winds. For you, 0 Orpheus, for you the trees let fall their leaves and shorn of foliage made lament. They say too that rivers swelled with their own tears, and the Naiads and Dryads changed their robes to black and wore their hair dishevelled. His limbs lie scattered in various places; his head and lyre you got, 0 river Hebrus; and-0 wonderwhile they floated in midstream, the lyre made some plaintive lamentation, I know not what, the lifeless tongue murmured laments too, and the banks lamented in reply.

And then they left his native Thracian river and were carried out to sea, until they reached Methymna on the island of Lesbos. Here they were washed ashore on foreign sands and a savage snake made for the mouth and hair soaked with the dripping foam. At last Phoebus Apollo appeared and stopped the serpent as it prepared to make its bite and froze hard its open mouth and gaping jaws, just as they were, in stone. The shade of Orpheus went down below the earth and recognized all the places he had seen before; he looked amid the fields of the pious and found Eurydice, and clasped her in his eager arms. Here now they walk together side by side, sometimes he follows her as she precedes, sometimes he goes ahead and safely now looks back at his Eurydice. As Ovid continues the story we are told that Bacchus was distressed at the loss of the poet who sang his mysteries; he punished the Thracian women by turning them into trees and then abandoned Thrace all together. The other major classical version of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is by Vergil. Most, but not all, of the details are similar in both, although the poetic timbre is different. According to Vergil, Eurydice stepped on the snake while running away from the unwelcome advances of Aristaeus. Thus Ovid represents the tradition for the tragic story of music, enchantment, love, and death that has been re-created again and again with imagination, beauty, and profundity whether it be in an opera by Cluck or a movie by Cocteau. But there is another very important side to Orpheus' character of which we can only catch glimpses today because of the inadequacy of our evidence, for Orpheus was considered the founder of a religion, a prophet (theologos) who with his priests and disciples committed to writing holy words (hieroi logoi) that provided a bible for dogma, ritual, and grapple on the yellow sand. Others dance in a chorus and behavior. Variations and inconsistencies in the tradition make it difficult to know this Orpheus and his religion precisely, but the general nature of their character and development can be discerned, despite the frustrating contradictions and obscurities.

Some of the significant "facts" that can be isolated from the diverse accounts are as follows: Orpheus' home was in Thrace; his mother was one of the Muses, usually Calliope; his father was either Oeagrus, a Thracian river-god, or the great god Apollo, whom he follows. He wooed and won Eurydice, a Dryad, by the charm of his music. When she died, he went to Hades to fetch her but failed. Orpheus was one of the members of Jason's Argonautic expedition. He had a son or a pupil, Musaeus, who assumed many of the characteristics of Orpheus himself. Among the versions of his death, several prove interesting in the quest for the historical religious teacher. He is said to have been struck down by the thunderbolt of Zeus because in his mysteries he taught things unknown before, or he died because of a conspiracy of his countrymen, who would not accept his teachings. The common tradition (which both Ovid and Vergil reflect) has the women of Thrace responsible for his death. But the reasons for their hostility vary: they were angry when he neglected them after the death of Eurydice, or refused to initiate them into his mysteries, and enticed their husbands away from them. Sometimes the women are followers of Dionysus, expressly directed by their god against Orpheus, for Dionysus in his attempts to convert Thrace to his religion met the opposition of Orpheus, a devoted follower of Apollo the sun-god, and sent his Maenads to tear the bard to pieces. According-to some, these pieces of his body were buried by his mother and sister Muses in Thrace or in the region of Mt. Olympus. His head and lyre were claimed by Lesbos (as already explained by Ovid), where a shrine was erected in his honor. The head became an oracular source, but its prophecies were suppressed by Apollo. A temple of Bacchus was built over the spot where the head was buried. The chronological tradition for Orpheus' career is equally muddled. Those who date him in connection with Homer deserve the most credibility. Thus he was the inventor of writing and his works preceded the Homeric epics, or Homer was the first poet and Orpheus followed shortly after. In these conflicting statements a fundamental and puzzling duality is evident. Orpheus is linked in one way or another to both Apollo and Dionysus.

Was there a real Orpheus, a missionary in Thrace who met his death violently? Did he champion Apollo against Dionysus, Dionysus against Apollo, or did he compromise and adapt the religion of the Oriental Dionysus to that of Hellenic Apollo, taking from both and preaching a message that was new and convincing, at least to some? However one would like to interpret the evidence, this duality cannot be ignored. The music, magic, and prophecy suggest Apollo, as does the championship of civilization, but Apollo silenced the oracle of Orpheus, whose sermon of gentleness and peace has none of the violence of the archer-god. On the other hand, Orpheus' music is the antithesis of the clashing din of Bacchus; and the tales of the misogyny of Orpheus could imply that at some period his religion was confined to males as opposed to the worship of Dionysus with its appeal to women. Yet Orphic initiation and mysteries are by their very nature Dionysiac. Other elements in the legends of both Orpheus and Dionysus are strikingly parallel: Orpheus is tom to pieces like Dionysus himself (at the hands of the Titans), or like Pentheus, who also opposed the god and was destroyed by his Maenads. Dionysus, like Orpheus, descended to the Underworld, in his case to fetch his mother, Semele; indeed a less common variant has Orpheus successful (just as Dionysus is) in his pursuit of Eurydice. At any rate, on the side of the historicity of Orpheus is the tradition that he was not a god but a hero who lived, suffered, and died; his tomb was sacred, and he had a cult. He was in this view a prophet, a priest, or if you like, a saint, whose god was Apollo or Dionysus or both. Such a belief is ultimately subjective. But the fact is that by the fifth century he was accepted as a human religious teacher, whose doctrine was communicated in sacred writings attributed to him and believed to be much earlier in time. Tablets were said to be found in the mountains of Thrace inscribed with his writing, prescribing potent charms, incantations, and spells. Plato in the fourth century quotes hexameter lines of Orpheus and tells of priests who preached his message of salvation. Later, Orpheus is credited with songs about the gods and the origin of all things. The account of the Argonauts and the hymns that have come down to us under Orpheus' name were given their present form in the early centuries of our era. An attractive thesis claims that the religion attributed to the legendary musician was formulated in large part by philosophers in southern Italy and Sicily (although not necessarily confined to this region) in the sixth century. Thus we can explain the elements identified as Orphic in the philosophy of Empedocles and in the religious sect of Pythagoras, and account for the Orphic-Pythagorean thought that is transmitted by Plato.

Dominant in the pantheon of Orphism was Dionysus, very often under the name of Zagreus. Although we hear about initiation into mysteries and a ritual life of purity demanded by the Orphics, we do not know the details. The shedding of blood and the eating of flesh seem to have been important prohibitions inspired by a fundamental belief in the transmigration of the soul and the sanctity of all life. It is possible to reconstruct the basic themes of the Orphic Theogony with its myth of Dionysus crucial to the doctrine. Parallels to the Theogony of Hesiod are apparent, but with meaningful differences and variations. The major stages in the Orphic Theogony run as follows, although divergent statements in the tradition are many. The first principle was Chronus (Time), sometimes described as a monstrous serpent having the heads of a bull and a lion with a god's face between; Chronus was accompanied by brooding Adrasteia (Necessity), and from Chronus came Aether, Chaos, and Erebus. In Aether Chronus fashioned an egg that split in two and from this appeared the first-born of all the gods, Phanes, the creator of everything, called by many names, among them Eros. He was a bisexual deity, with gleaming golden wings and four eyes, described as possessing the appearance of various animals. Phanes bore a daughter, Night, who became his partner in creation and eventually his successor in power. Night then bore Gaea (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven), and they produced the Titans. Next Cronus succeeded to the rule of Night and subsequently (as in the Hesiodic account) Zeus wrested power from his father, Cronus. Then Zeus swallowed Phanes and with him all previous creation (including a special race of men of a Golden Age); Zeus now created everything anew with the help of Night, and Zeus became (as second creator) the beginning and middle and end of all things.

Eventually Zeus mated with Kore (Persephone), and Dionysus was born. This myth of the birth of Dionysus is most potent in the dogma it provides but we have related it in connection with the study of Dionysus himself. Its essential features are that the infant god is killed and devoured by the monstrous Titans, who are struck down in punishment by the thunderbolt of Zeus. From the ashes of the Titans came mankind; thus man is partly evil and mortal but also partly pure and divine, since the wicked Titans had consumed the god, although not completely. The heart of Dionysus was saved, and he was born again. In this way the Orphic bible provided the divine authority for belief in man's immortal soul, the necessity for keeping this soul pure as opposed to the contamination and degradation of the body, the concept of a kind of original sin, the transmigration of the soul and an afterlife of reward and punishment, and finally, after various stages of purification, an apotheosis, a union with the divine spirit in the realms of the upper aether. The seeds of everything came from Phanes or Zeus; out of the One all things come to be and into the One are once again resolved. Plato's myth of Er and Vergil's vision of the afterlife are, as far as we can tell, strongly influenced by Orphic concepts; a reading of both, translated in a previous article, will convey most simply and directly a feeling for the basic tenets of Orphism. The ritual purification and catharsis of the great god Apollo are mingled with the Dionysiac belief in the ultimate immortality of the human soul and provide a discipline and control of the ecstatic passion of his Bacchic mysteries. We cannot distinguish with clear precision among the many different mystery religions and philosophies of the ancient world. It is possible to argue that the mysteries of Demeter with their emphasis on participation in certain dramatic rites lacked the spiritual depth of Orphism with its insistence on the good life as well as mere initiation and ritual. The correspondences between Christianity and other mystery religions of antiquity are perhaps more startling that the differences. Orpheus and Christ share attributes in the early centuries of our era, and of all the ancient deities the god Dionysus has most in common with the figure of Christ. But in any comparison or contrast for the greater glory or detriment of one god and one religion as opposed to another, it must be remembered that we know relatively nothing about the Greek and Roman mysteries as compared with our knowledge, say, of Christianity, particularly in its full development.