Miraculous myths I: Orpheus and Eurydice in Ovid's Metamorphoses X.1-85

Introduction

It was in my third year of secundary education (I believe that's the end of junior high school) when I first encountered this myth. Funnily enough, it was during a Latin exam, which tested our knowledge of the participle present. The exam consisted of some excersises that made us change verbs to their participle equivalents and vice versa, and it ended with a translation exercise. The text that we had to translate was a simplified version of this text, though it skipped to the part where Orpheus has already sung to Hades and Persephone. I don't remember what I got for that test, but the simplified Latin text, filled with present participles, is still in my mind when I think of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was a bummer to find out that Ovid's version was not so visually narrated as that simple text had been, but I was still enamoured by his style. Enfin, we are not here to recollect old school stories. We are here because we want to know how Ovid represents the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. 

The story of Orpheus annd Eurydice starts off book 10 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. It's slightly introduced by the connecting theme of marriage, which was the subject of the ending of book 9:
the marriage between Iphis and Ianthe. Focussing on Hymnaeus, the god of marriage, Ovid explains that he was hopping from the first one to this new one, but this new one has sinister omens. Then, he goes through the elements everyone is familiar with (because of Ovid's story): Eurydice being bitten by a snake, Orpheus going down to the underworld to persuade Hades & Persephone to let Eurydice live again, the condition of Hades, and Orpheus's failure.

Translation

Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.1-85:

After these events, Hymenaeus got dressed in a bright women's veil and passed
through the endless sky until he reaches the coast of Thrace. For the voice of Orpheus had summoned him in vain for his marriage. Yet, Hymenaeus came anyway, but he didn't bring the usual things such as solemn vows, happy faces or favourable omens. Even the burning torch that he held in his hand produced constantly tearful smoke and he couldn't make the fire really ignite despite all his efforts.

These were just the ominous signs: the event was even more dreadful.

His newly wedded wife, Eurydice, while she was wandering through the fields with a company of nymphs, well she died by receiving a fatal attack of a snake in her heel. After taking some time to bemoan her to his heart's content on the surface world, the Thracian poet, Orpheus, dared to descend to the entrance gate of the Underworld to see if he could also win the hearts of ghosts. He passed by faintly visible people looking like the images of people that normally stand in graves; as he finally entered upon Persephone and the Lord who watched over this gloomy kingdom of ghosts. This was his song that he performed alongside the plucking sound of his lyre:

" O gods of the world placed beneath the surface,
the place to which we, all who are created as mortals, are eventually returning:
if it is lawful and if you allow me to speak truthfully
without any digression of a false mouth,
I have not descended to this place to see the shady Tartarus,
nor to bind the three heads of Cerberus, born from the monster Medusa,
a shaggy dog with similar snake hair;
no, the reason for my journey is my wife, who stepped on a snake
and it poured out its venom in her and took away the best years of our love.

I wanted to succeed in enduring this suffering and I will not deny my attempts, but
Love has won! In the realm above he is well-known.
I'm not sure if he's here too. Yet, I suppose he is here alright;

if that tale of your old booty is not lied about,
Love has connected you two too. By these placed filled with fear,
by the enormous blackhole (chaos) and silence of the your vast kingdom,

I beg thee, tie up the hastily unraveled threads of Eurydice

We will be obliged to you in every way, and with only a bit of delay,
not later or faster do we go nimbly to our single abode.
We stretch our whole life towards this, this here is our ultimate home, you
own the longest lasting realm of human race.
And she too, when she has passed through her rightful years as an adult,
will be under your jurisdiction; and for this gift of death we ask some time of our lives.
For it is certain, if the fates don't grant my wife this favor,
that there's no will for me to return;
Be happy with the death of two."

That's what he said and he tuned his strings th the words,
making those bloodless souls cry for him; Tantulus didn't desire
that elusive water, Ixion's wheel stood still,
the birds of prey didn't pick on the liver, 
The daughers of Danaus (son of Belus) were loafing around far from their urns,

and even Sisyphus was sitting on his rock.
It's even being said that the cheeks of the Furies dripped
with tears, as the song conquered their harts for the first time.
Neither the royal spouse nor he who ruled the belows could say no
to the pleading hero, so they called for Eurydice;
she was amongst the recently arrived shadows,
and she tread in a slow pace because of her wound.

Thracian Orpheus accepted both her and the rule
to make his eyes not look back until he made his exit
from the valleys of the dead: or the incoming gift would be sent back.
Through mutual silence they climb the path uphill,
a path that's steep, dark, thick with a shadowy fog.
And they were not far from the edge of earth above,

yet here did the lover turn around his gaze,both eager to see

and in fear she couldn't keep up; and immediately she felt down again,
stretching her arms and struggling to be picked up or to pick
nothing, but only did she grasp vanishing winds.

And she, dying again, didn't even have one complaint about
her husband; for what would she complaint about except for being loved?

Her last "goodbye" , which was hardly picked up by his ears,
she said and returned again to the same spot.
Not differently did Orpheus stand aghast by the twofold death of his wife,
from that one who fearfully saw the three necks of the dog,
while the middle one was wearing the dog chain, whom fear didn't leave before
his earlier composure'd left after he felt petrified through his body.

Also not differently from Olenus who adopted a crime to himself and wanted
to look guilty, and not differently from you who confided fully in her beauty,
miserable Lethaea, you two once most attached bodies,
now stone, which the humid town Ide holds.

The ferryman had hold him at a distance, though he was asking effortlessly
if he was willing to carry him over again; yet for seven days did Orpheus 

sit there filty on the bank without a gift of Ceres; 

worry, pain and tears were nourishment for his soul .

After his complaint that the Gods of Darkness are cruel, he retreated to high
Rhodopen and Haemus, pushed by nothern winds.

The Titan Helios had ended a year, that's been confined
by the maritine fishes for a third time, and each feminine
form of love was eschewed by Orpheus, be it that something bad
had come from it to him, or that he had given an end to that.
Yet the passion to connect with the poet was strong for many women.
Many were hurt by his rejection. He was also one of the originators
for the people of Thrace to bring boys over to tender love and within their youth
to pluck their short spring of their life and first flowers.

Latin text

Inde per inmensum croceo velatus amictu

aethera digreditur Ciconumque Hymenaeus ad oras

tendit et Orphea nequiquam voce vocatur.

Adfuit ille quidem, sed nec sollemnia verba

nec laetos vultus nec felix attulit omen.

Fax quoque, quam tenuit, lacrimoso stridula fumo

usque fuit nullosque invenit motibus ignes.

Exitus auspicio gravior: nam nupta per herbas

dum nova naiadum turba comitata vagatur,

occidit in talum serpentis dente recepto.

Quam satis ad superas postquam Rhodopeius auras

deflevit vates, ne non temptaret et umbras,

ad Styga Taenaria est ausus descendere porta;

perque leves populos simulacraque functa sepulcro

Persephonen adiit inamoenaque regna tenentem

umbrarum dominum. Pulsisque ad carmina nervis

sic ait: “O positi sub terra numina mundi,

in quem reccidimus, quidquid mortale creamur,

si licet et falsi positis ambagibus oris

vera loqui sinitis, non huc, ut opaca viderem

Tartara, descendi, nec uti villosa colubris

terna Medusaei vincirem guttura monstri:

causa viae est coniunx, in quam calcata venenum

vipera diffudit crescentesque abstulit annos.

Posse pati volui nec me temptasse negabo:

vicit Amor. Supera deus hic bene notus in ora est,

an sit et hic, dubito. Sed et hic tamen auguror esse;

famaque si veteris non est mentita rapinae,

vos quoque iunxit Amor. Per ego haec loca plena timoris,

per chaos hoc ingens vastique silentia regni,

Eurydices, oro, properata retexite fata.

Omnia debemur vobis, paulumque morati

serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam.

Tendimus huc omnes, haec est domus ultima, vosque

humani generis longissima regna tenetis.

Haec quoque, cum iustos matura peregerit annos,

iuris erit vestri: pro munere poscimus usum.

Quod si fata negant veniam pro coniuge, certum est

nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum.”

Talia dicentem nervosque ad verba moventem

exsangues flebant animae: nec Tantalus undam

captavit refugam, stupuitque Ixionis orbis,

nec carpsere iecur volucres, urnisque vacarunt

Belides, inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo.

Tunc primum lacrimis victarum carmine fama est

Eumenidum maduisse genas. Nec regia coniunx

sustinet oranti nec qui regit ima negare,

Eurydicenque vocant. Umbras erat illa recentes

inter et incessit passu de vulnere tardo.

Hanc simul et legem Rhodopeius accipit Orpheus,

ne flectat retro sua lumina, donec Avernas

exierit valles: aut inrita dona futura.

Carpitur acclivis per muta silentia trames,

arduus, obscurus, caligine densus opaca.

Nec procul afuerunt telluris margine summae:

hic, ne deficeret, metuens avidusque videndi

flexit amans oculos; et protinus illa relapsa est,

bracchiaque intendens prendique et prendere certans

nil nisi cedentes infelix arripit auras.

Iamque iterum moriens non est de coniuge quicquam

questa suo: quid enim nisi se quereretur amatam?

Supremumque “vale,” quod iam vix auribus ille

acciperet, dixit revolutaque rursus eodem est.

Non aliter stupuit gemina nece coniugis Orpheus,

quam tria qui timidus, medio portante catenas,

colla canis vidit, quem non pavor ante reliquit,

quam natura prior, saxo per corpus oborto;

quique in se crimen traxit voluitque videri

Olenos esse nocens, tuque, o confisa figurae,

infelix Lethaea, tuae, iunctissima quondam

pectora, nunc lapides, quos umida sustinet Ide.

Orantem frustraque iterum transire volentem

portitor arcuerat. Septem tamen ille diebus

squalidus in ripa Cereris sine munere sedit:

cura dolorque animi lacrimaeque alimenta fuere.

Esse deos Erebi crudeles questus, in altam

se recipit Rhodopen pulsumque aquilonibus Haemum.

Tertius aequoreis inclusum piscibus annum

finierat Titan, omnemque refugerat Orpheus

femineam venerem, seu quod male cesserat illi,

sive fidem dederat. Multas tamen ardor habebat

iungere se vati, multae doluere repulsae.

Ille etiam Thracum populis fuit auctor amorem

in teneros transferre mares citraque iuventam

aetatis breve ver et primos carpere flores.