Eurydice
In Greek mythology, Eurydice or Eurydike was the wife of Orpheus, who tried to bring her back from the dead with his enchanting music.
Orpheus and Eurydice
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, Aristaeus saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a viper, was bitten, and died 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, suspecting 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. Other ancient sources however, speak of Orpheus's visit to the underworld in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, 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, 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 deities, 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 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.
The story of Eurydice has a number of 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, to the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent to the underworld. The biblical story of Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back at the town she was fleeing, is "often compared to the story of Orpheus and his wife Eurydike."
Works of art
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been depicted in a number of works by artists, including Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, Corot and recently, Bracha Ettinger whose series, Eurydice, was exhibited in the Pompidou Centre, ; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerpen. 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 Jacopo Peri, Monteverdi, Gluck, Yevstigney Fomin, Harrison Birtwistle, and Matthew Aucoin. The myth is also the basis of Anaïs 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 on the track "Talk" from Hozier's 2019 album Wasteland, Baby!
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is the basis for a 2003 play by Sarah Ruhl, later made into a 2020 opera by Matthew Aucoin. It inspired the 1959 film Black Orpheus by Marcel Camus. The myth also inspired the American playwright Tennessee Williams' 1957 drama Orpheus Descending.
Other uses include:
- Valsa de Euridice, a song by Vinicius de Moraes
- Euridice, an opera by Jacopo Peri, the first genuine opera whose music survives to this day
- Orphée, directed by Jean Cocteau
- 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, by Claudio Monteverdi, widely regarded as the first operatic masterwork
- 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 1941 play by Jean Anouilh
- From the Underworld, a song by British psychedelic band The Herd.
- Euridice, a song from the 1971 album Focus II by Focus
- Evrydiki BA 2O37, 1975 film directed by Nikos Nikolaidis.
- Eurydice, a song from the album Echoes and Artifacts by The Crüxshadows
- Eurydice, a song from the album The Dawnseeker by Sleepthief
- Hadestown, a 2010 ensemble album by Anaïs Mitchell, featuring Mitchell as Eurydice, Justin Vernon as Orpheus and Ani DiFranco among others, retelling the myth as a 'folk opera' in a post-apocalyptic Depression era America. Also, a Broadway musical of the same name that opened in 2019.
- Eurydice by Wayne Shorter and recorded by Weather Report on their eponymous 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
- Awful Sound and It's Never Over songs from the album Reflektor by Arcade Fire
- Eurydice from the album Days of Abandon by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
- Eurydice, a poem by Portuguese poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen in her book No Tempo Dividido
- Eurydice, a poem which retells the traditional myth through a feminist lens by British poet Carol Ann Duffy in her book The World's Wife
- Eurydice is a name of comet in the Ariana Grande's song "One Last time".
- Eurydice, a 2020 opera by Matthew Aucoin with libretto by Sarah Ruhl based on her 2003 play of the same name
Honours
- Eurydice Peninsula in Antarctica is named after Eurydice.
- A species of Australian lizard, Ctenotus eurydice, is named after Eurydice.
- An asteroid 75 Eurydike is named after Eurydice.