When Orpheus was later killed by the Maenads at the orders of Dionysus, his soul ended up in the Underworld where he was reunited with Eurydice. 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. Soon he began to doubt that she was there, suspecting that Hades had deceived him. 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. 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. 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. 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. One day, Aristaeus saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a viper, was bitten, and died instantly. Main article: Orpheus and Eurydice Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein, Orpheus and Eurydice, 1806, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, CopenhagenĮurydice was the Auloniad wife of musician Orpheus, who loved her dearly on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. In some accounts, she was instead called Agriope, which means "savage face". Adriana Cavarero, in the book Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood, wrote that "the etymology of Eurydice seems rather to indicate, in the term eurus, a vastness of space or power, which, joining to dike, designates her as 'the one who judges with breadth' or, perhaps, 'she who shows herself amply'". Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early 6th century AD, gave the latter etymological meaning. Several meanings for the name Eurydice have been proposed such as "true judgement" or "profound judgement" from the Greek: eur dike. Eurydice ( / j ʊəˈr ɪ d ɪ s iː/ Ancient Greek: Εὐρυδίκη 'wide justice') was a character in Greek mythology and the Auloniad wife of Orpheus, whom Orpheus tried to bring back from the dead with his enchanting music.Įtymology Charles-François Lebœuf, Dying Eurydice (1822), marble
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