The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1

The issue opens with Orpheus looking like a disembodied head floating in the ocean and calling for his wife Eurydice. He realizes he is dreaming and is happy to see his father, Dream there. Dream tells him to wake up, and Orpheus asks Dream what his dream meant. Orpheus deduces that he has had a vision of his future, but Dream refuses to tell him what that future is, and Dream says it’s because Orpheus is his son that he refuses to reveal the future.

In the waking world, it is ancient Greece, and it is Orpheus’s wedding day. Orpheus accompanies his friend Aristaeus to the wedding. On the way he is greeted by his mother Calliope and Dream. Death and the other Endless, including Destruction, join them. Orpheus and Eurydice are married and though the other Endless leave, Death stays behind. Aristaeus, who has been drinking quite a bit, tells Eurydice that he has something to tell her in private, so he asks her to meet him in a private grove. He attempts to sexually assault her, but she wrestles away from him. As Eurydice runs away, she steps on a snake, which bites her, and she dies.