Miraculous Myths II: Orpheus's Death (Ovid Met. 11.1-66)

Lekythos (oil flask) depicting
Orpheus being killed,
at Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

Introduction 

In the last part, we left Ovid's story with Orpheus being unable to rescue his wife and went back to Thrace (to Rhodopen and Haemus). Hereafter, we saw that he eschewed women but was interested in the love of boys (here, Orpheus is seen as an originator of the Greek practice of philopaideia). To illustrate this, Ovid continues book 10 with a bunch of myths about boys and men that were loved by the Gods: Ganymedes, Hyacinthus, Adonis among others. The nifty way he recounts it is with ekphrasis, a narrative technique where a poet incorpates stories within stories. In book 10, Ovid represents the singer Orpheus secluded in a grove where he (Orpheus) sings off those boys. There's even a further layer in that the story of Adonis contains the story of Atalanta, recounted by Aphrodite to Adonis. It is after this sequence of myths recounted by Orpheus, that the poet focusses on Orpheus once more in book 11. 

Translation

While the Thracian poet leads the way with such a song to forests and
the spirits of wild animals and (even) rocks that follow along,
Hold up, look! A band of young woman from the Cicones, their
savage bodies covered up with hides of wild animals, witness from the summit of
a hill the Orphic songs accompanied by the tunes of his lyre.
One of them lets her hair flow through the smooth winds and says:
“Watch, watch (ladies), this man here is loathing us (a loather of us)!” A spear,
she throws it towards the singing mouth of that poet dedicated to Apollo;
a spear which covered over by leaves has hit its mark without any wound;
the projectile of another lady is a rock that, sent in the air
itself, was conquered by the symphony of voice and lyre,
and as a beggar the pebble lied down before his feet asking forgiveness for
such a wild attempt. In vain, though, for the reckless hostile acts grow,
temperance has vanished, and insane Erinys (Fury of Vengeance) rules.

All the projectiles would have been made ineffective by his song, but a loud
clamour, namely Phrygian pipes from unbroken horns, tumbrils, clapping,
and Bacchic howling were resounding against the sound of his lyre.
At that moment, finally, did the rocks colour red with the blood of
the poet, when he couldn’t been heard.
And first, the Maenads seized themselves upon the innumerable
birds, snakes and flock of wild beasts, who were still captivated
by the voice of the singer,
ripping away the title of the Orphic spectacle.
Next, they turn themselves towards Orpheus with their bloodied hand,
and they all flock together on him, as is the case
if birds spot at once a wandering bird of the night during daylight,
or when a dear is about to experience to become pray for the hounds
on the morning grounds of the amphitheatre; likewise they attacked the poet
and made their thyrsus staffs with their green loaf hit him,
a purpose for which those staffs weren’t made.
Some of them swirled humps of dirt, others branches torn off from a tree,
a group were casting solid rocks; in any case, there was no shortage of weaponry
for their fury. For accidentally there were oxen ploughing the earth,
and not very far away were buff farmers grubbing in the hard fields,
working out in sweat to get their awaited harvest.
Yet, when they saw that frenzied group, they ran off and left their tools,
weaponry of their work. Hoes, heavy mattocks, and long rakes
lay scattered over the empty fields.
After that mad band had stolen those tools and torn the cattle, with their
menacing horns, into pieces, they returned the fate of the poet.
He stretched his hands and spoke in vain for the first time of his life at that point,
but he couldn’t change or move anything with his voice.
Those god defying women killed him off, and through that mouth, O Jove,
heard by rocks and perceived by the senses of those wild women,
his last exhaled breath was lost to the winds.

Saddened birds wept for you, Orpheus, as did your band of wild animals,
as did the stiff rocks, as did the forests who often accompanied your songs;
The trees mourned your loss by trimming off their leaves and placing them near you;
they say even the rivers increased in size due to their own tears, and the Naiads and Dryads
wore soft garments fitted with black borders and had their hair untied,
according to the mourning customs.
Your limbs lay all separated from each other at different locations, yet
your head and lyre were picked up by you, river Hebrus, and – it was a miracle -
while flowing down in the midstream, the lyre played a deplorable complaint,
sound unknown, his lifeless tongue whispered a similar one, the riverbank responded
likewise. They were brought to the sea, having left the indigenous river,
and they took their place at Methymna on the coast of Lesbos.

Here, on this unfamiliar sand, did a snake encounter the exposed head,
and the hairs that were wet from drips of seawater,
Finally Phoebus arrives and prevents the plans of that foul beast
of eating him, and he transforms the opened mouth of the snake
to stone, hardening the wide-opened mouth more and more as it were.
Orpheus’s soul descends from the earth and recognises all the places
which he had already seen before, and looking through the fields of the Blessed
he finds Eurydice and embraces her with his arms of love.
Right there, both of them walk in harmonising steps,
now does he follow her as she takes the lead, now he walks in front of her,
and finally, without any risks can Orpheus look back at his Eurydice.