Orpheus

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Orpheus

• Music Transcendence

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The Musician / Bard
In a society without writing -- history, cultural
knowledge and sacred stories were preserved in
poetry. People with the capacity for remembering
and performing song bards were honored.
Poets often claimed divine inspiration, to
explain their gift and its truthfulness. Homer
and Hesiod, whose works (?) are preserved, were
heroes. Orpheus, a mythic poet, was regarded as
greater still.
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The Power of music

• Orpheuss music could make stones weep, trees
  dance could calm animals, even turn the heart of
  death.
• Music as an intrinsically magical thing (common
  theme of music healing suffering)
• shamanic power of the musician journeys into
  other worlds, communication with other forms of
  intelligence
• hero who upsets the natural order (like
  Asclepius) through his remarkable talent

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Orpheus and Eurydice
Orpheus was the child of either Apollo or a
Thracian river-god his mother was a Muse.
Eurydice was a Dryad (tree-nymph). They fell in
love and got married BUT . . . On their wedding
day she was killed by a snake-bite, and went down
into Hades. Refusing to accept her death, Orpheus
went after her, singing his pleas for her release
to Hades and Persephone.
As he made his pleas and sang these 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 stopped tearing at the liver of Tityus,
and you, O Sisyphus, sat on your stone. Then for
the first time, the cheeks of the Furies were wet
with tears, and Hades and Persephone could not
endure his pleas or their refusal.
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Orpheus and Eurydice
Orpheus is told to walk back up to the living
world and not look back Eurydice will follow
him. But . . .
Not far from the border of the world, 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 he grasped nothing
but the limp and yielding breezes.
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In another story, his Thracian countrymen kill
him because of his teachings. The most common
version is that he is killed by Maenads.
Orpheus Fate
Depressed and uncaring of the rest of the world,
Orpheus goes back to Thrace and loses himself in
his music and in mystical discoveries and
teachings. The next thing we hear about is that
he dies, dramatically but who kills him and
why? In one tradition, Zeus strikes him down with
a thunderbolt for daring to teach sacred
mysteries.
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Orpheus Fate

• But why? Because
• he now rejected all other women, and the Thracian
  women were angry at this?
• he refused to initiate them into his mystery
  religion (which continued male-only)?
• Dionysus sent them to kill him, since he was a
  devotee of Apollo?

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Orpheus Fate
For you, Orpheus, the trees let fall their leaves
and shorn of foliage made lament. They say too
that the rivers swelled with their own tears . .
. His limbs lie scattered in various places the
river Hebrus got his head and lyre, and while
they floated in midstream, the lyre made some
plaintive lamentations, and the lifeless tongue
murmurred laments too, and the banks cried out in
reply.
In Hades, Orpheus and Eurydice meet again
Here now they walk together side by side, and he
safely now looks back at his Eurydice. (Ovid)
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Orphism
Orpheus is the central figure of a mystery
religion, whose secrecy leaves us little to go
on. While bards and the lyre are associated with
Apollo, Orpheus is also strongly associated with
Dionysus through Thrace and the Maenads. The
creation story associated with his mysteries
focuses on the figure of Zagreus, aka Dionysus.
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Apollos poetry prophecy, and Dionysus
maenadic ecstasy, all show connection with
irrational, intuitive forms of wisdom.
Orphism
Orphic religion apparently explored alternative
ways of knowing about life afterlife.
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Orphism
The Orphic creation story Chronus (time), the
first element, fashioned an egg which split to
reveal . . . Eros/Phanes, who with his daughter
Night gave created everything. Zeus swallowed
Phanes and all creation, and created it
anew. With Persephone, he fathered Dionysus.
Dionysus was dismembered and eaten by the Titans,
who were then destroyed by Zeuss
thunderbolt. The heart of Dionysus was saved and
he was reborn. Humans were created from the ashes
of the Titans naturally bad, but imbued with
Dionysus divine spark.
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Orphism was one of many mystery religions which
flourished in the Greek and Roman worlds, esp.
300 BCE- 300 CE.
Orphism
Orphics apparently believed in Transmigration of
the soul (reincarnation) Keeping a pure lifestyle
while on earth (including vegetarianism) A final
reuniting with the divine spirit in the upper
world (rather than death in the underworld)
Isis was a popular Mystery deity
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Isis and Other Mysteries
Isis sanctuary, where sacred dramas were
performed.
In the Greek and Roman worlds, many mystery
religions offered spiritual enlightenment and
personal relationship with the deity through
initiation and secret knowledge. Like
Christianity, they gave the individual worshipper
hope for a better life in an uncertain world and
frequently the expectation of new life after
death
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The worship of Isis, like many mystery religions
(and modern New Age beliefs), builds on existing
traditions and looks for universality and
personal meaning.
Isis
In Apuleius Golden Ass, the hero is saved by the
goddess
Behold, Lucius, I have come, moved by your
prayers. I am the mother of things in nature,
the mistress of all the elements, the firstborn
of the ages, the sum of the divine powers, queen
of the souls of the dead, first of the heavenly
powers, the single form of the gods and
goddesses, who by my nod control the bright
heights of heaven, the health-bringing powers of
the sea, the grievous silence of the gods of the
underworld. My name, one with many forms, varied
rituals, and many names, is revered by the whole
world.
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Finis
Like Isis, and even more central in the Greek
world, Orpheus remained a vital figure in myth,
cult, and intellectual configuring of the meaning
of life.