Orpheus and Eurydice

Ovid liked to retell the traditional myths in his own way; his version of Orpheus and Eurydice thus differs from Virgil’s. He ignores Virgil’s framing narrative, in which Proteus speaks to Aristaeus, and instead begins with Hymen, the god of marriage flying through the sky to attend the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice. Ovid introduces Hymen as a smooth transition from the previous Metamorphoses story—its Book 9 ends with Hymen as one of the gods presiding over the wedding of Iphis and Ianthe, so it makes sense to make him an appropriate segue.

Having got Hymen to the next wedding, Ovid uses the character to create a gloomy scene full of bad omens, thus creating a contrast between a happy marriage—that of Iphis and Ianthe—and a tragic one. Hymen does not find the right words to say, and he does not smile. Moreover, his torch does not light and just blows smoke around, however hard he tries. What should be a happy scene therefore becomes a gloomy one, foreshadowing the imminent death of Eurydice. (Hymen features little in Greek mythology; he has no myths of his own, so Ovid can do what he likes with him to add color to the story.) Whereas in Virgil’s version, Aristaeus is blamed for Eurydice’s death, Ovid presents it as an unfortunate accident. Just married, Eurydice is celebrating with her friends and does not see the snake lurking in the grass.

In the aftermath of Eurydice’s death, Ovid diverges from Virgil by not being especially sympathetic to Orpheus. Whereas Virgil presents eight lines of nature reacting in grief to Eurydice’s death and Orpheus’s deep distress at losing his beloved wife, Ovid devotes only one line to his reaction. Yes, Orpheus mourns, but he quickly decides to take his mourning from the earth to the spirits in Hades, with the subtle suggestion that he sees this as some kind of challenge.

When Orpheus reaches the underworld, Ovid again pivots so as not to repeat Virgil. Whereas Virgil describes the effects of Orpheus’s singing on the inhabitants of Hades, but gives Orpheus no actual words to say, Ovid expands on Virgil’s account, giving Orpheus 28 lines in which to directly plead his case to Hades and Persephone. Orpheus thus emerges more fully characterized here than he does in Virgil’s version, which is narrated entirely in the third person.

In his speech, Orpheus appeals both to emotion and reason. After addressing the deities respectfully, he says he has come to Hades not as a sightseer but for the sake of his beloved wife. Orpheus politely makes room for local custom: His love for Eurydice has brought him here, but he allows that maybe love does not hold much currency in Hades, although he does not know this for sure. Ovid then gets a little mischievous. He has Orpheus allude to Hades’ ravishment of Persephone as evidence that the gods before him may know the kind of love he feels, but he hedges with, “if that ancient tale / […] is true” (Lines 32-33), suggesting that Orpheus doesn’t want to commit himself to affirming Hades’s kidnapping of Persephone, in case this is a sore subject. Nevertheless, Orpheus uses this appeal to love to ask the gods to unwind the fate that took Eurydice before her time, while she was still so young.

Now Orpheus turns to reason to further his argument. Everyone who lives on earth will, sooner or later, end up in Hades. All he is asking is that he and Eurydice might be permitted to enjoy their love a little longer; his request is more like a loan than an outright gift, since they will both come to Hades in the end. If the gods of the underworld refuse his request, he says, then he does not want to return to the upper world. 

Ovid now presents the effect of Orpheus’s song on the denizens of Hades, just as Virgil did. The creatures there are all stunned by what they hear and stop what they are doing. To Virgil’s version, which only mentions Ixion by name, Ovid adds some more shades who are enduring eternal punishment. Tantalus, for example, committed many crimes against the gods; now in Hades, he is punished with eternal burning thirst—he stands up to his chin in water, but whenever he tries to drink, the water dries up. Now, listening to Orpheus, Tantalus forgets all about that vanishing water. Then there are the Danaids, young women who, due to complicated circumstances that gave them no choice, had murdered their husbands. In Hades, they are condemned to draw water into leaky jars, which they have to keep refilling perpetually. On hearing Orpheus, however, they simply put their urns down. The vultures stop gnawing at Tityus’s liver. Ovid adds a comic touch to the description of Sisyphus, who is condemned to forever push a large boulder up a steep hill, only to have it roll back down when he nears the top: As he listens to Orpheus’s song, Sisyphus sits down on his rock rather than pushing it.

Ovid recapitulates some of the hellish monsters that Virgil mentions as being charmed by Orpheus. Ovid omits Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog, because he has already mentioned this beast earlier, near the beginning of Orpheus’s song to the underworld gods. Ovid also includes the Furies, but whereas Virgil conjures up their ghastly appearance, (“their hair a knot of writhing snakes” [Line 30]) Ovid adds a different telling detail—that the Furies weep on hearing Orpheus’s song, their cheeks “wet with tears” (Line 55).

After Orpheus ends his song, Hades and Persephone find in themselves some unexpected spirit of mercy. Eurydice is summoned, still limping from the snake bite, and the gods grant them permission to leave together, with one caveat—that Orpheus must not look back at Eurydice until they are back on the surface. While Virgil implies that Persephone (Proserpina) imposes this condition, Ovid does not specify, giving the impression that Hades and Persephone are in agreement about the terms of the pact.

While Virgil is silent about the walk upward, Ovid provides some details about the murky environment. The critical moment, which Virgil depicts as a momentary act of folly on the part of Orpheus, is presented quite differently by Ovid. Orpheus looks back out of love and concern for his companion, fearing that she might faint or falter. Ovid also has his own take on Eurydice’s reaction to this calamity. Virgil gives her five lines of direct speech to lament the situation, but Ovid instead pointedly writes that Eurydice does not complain as she does for a second time: “For what complaint had she save she was loved?” (Line 72). In other words, Eurydice makes no judgments; she simply honors the fact that she is loved. Thus, Ovid extends his generous sympathy to the lovers, rejecting the moral framework with which Virgil clothes his tale. It is love that is most important, not obedience to an arbitrary divine decree.

Ovid also differs from Virgil in his account of Orpheus’s life after he loses Eurydice for the second time. Both authors emphasize his long period of mourning, in which he does not seek love or marriage. Ovid adds the detail that many women desire Orpheus, but that he rejects them. Nevertheless, for Ovid, Orpheus does not remain entirely without love. He scorns women, but he does have relationships with young men. In this introduction of homosexuality, which does not appear in Virgil, Ovid draws on an earlier Greek tradition about Orpheus. 

Virgil ends by stressing that the couple parts forever. However, Ovid has one more trick up his sleeve. After Orpheus’s violent death—which Ovid presents in much greater detail than Virgil—Orpheus and Eurydice meet again in the underworld. They embrace joyfully and walk together hand in hand. Ovid emphasizes how different things are now. Sometimes Orpheus walks ahead of Eurydice and looks back at her, since there is no longer any danger of doing so. Thus, Ovid manages to create a comic (i.e., happy) ending out of what up to that point had been a heart-wrenching tragedy. This happy ending was not part of any tradition; Ovid invented it.