One day on his aimless wanderings Orpheus happened upon a group of Thracian women who were taking part in an orgiastic ritual in honor of Dionysus, god of wine and intoxication. When they saw Orpheus, they went into a frenzy and rushed after him. Their weapons, however, fell to the ground around him, charmed by his music. The women grew more hostile and bold, abandoning all restraint. As they began to play their raucous Dionysian music, the curved pipes, pounding drums, and whooping and shrieking all combined in a great cacophony that eventually drowned out the sound of the hero’s lyre.
The women were able to capture Orpheus. They ripped him to shreds with their bare hands. Their crime is usually said to have been motivated by their anger at having had their amatory advances rejected—as English playwright William Congreve (1670—1729) put it,“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Some accounts, however, claim that their actions were inspired by Dionysus himself, who resented Orpheus’s advocacy of the worship of Apollo.
As the women tore him apart, Orpheus’s head rolled down a hill into the Hebrus River and was washed down to the sea, rolling this way and that and constantly crying, “Eurydice! Eurydice!” Eventually it came ashore on the island of Lesbos. The local inhabitants placed the talking
Below: The story of Orpheus has remained perennially popular in art. In this French oil painting of the late 19th century, he is shown on the seashore lamenting the death of Eurydice on their wedding day.
Head in a cave, where it functioned as an oracle for those who came with questions. Orpheus was said to have inspired the work of Sappho (fl. c. 610-580 BCE), a great female poet who lived on Lesbos. In another legend, Orpheus was torn apart by Maenads—the Muses gathered the pieces of his dismembered corpse and buried them in a single place near their home on Mount Olympus. A nightingale sang over the tomb of Orpheus, and his musical instrument was placed in the heavens as a constellation. This is the modern Lyra, the brightest star of which is Vega.
World History
