APED: "eurydice"

One of my favorite stories. The story shows the true curse and pain of being human - we are flawed and will fail.

But at the same time, the passage from the Georgics describing the song Orpheus sang that made the nymphs and gods weep, and even moved the hearts of the guardians of the underworld is one of the most beautiful things I think ever written.

At cantu commotae Erebi de sedibus imis
umbrae ibant tenues simulacraque luce carentum,
quam multa in foliis avium se milia condunt
vesper ubi aut hibernus agit de montibus imber,
matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita
magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae,
impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum,
quos circum limus niger et deformis harundo
Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda
alligat et noviens Styx interfusa coercet.
Quin ipsae stupuere domus atque intima Leti
tartara caeruleosque implexae crinibus angues
Eumenides, tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora
atque Ixionii vento rota constitit orbis.

She's so very different from Dame Heurodis (and has such a sad ending!), but it's a much, much more powerful story because of the differences. (I've just been reading 'Sir Orfeo' with a friend, over a series of Sunday evenings. It's the Middle English version of the same myth, except that Orfeo the harpist, King of Winchester, succeeds in bringing his wiif back from the fairies, since fairies are easier to trick than Hades).

It's rare to see Eurydice given opinions or feelings during the time she follows Orpheus, I think. The versions I've read have all had her as more of a potential than a real person at that point -- shade more than woman, more image than a shade, to misquote Yeats. I like this one. She didn't ask for the task of following him silently, but she's doing so well, and if only...

Very nice.

It's a story that I think we can all relate to, sadly enough.

That's beautiful!

More specific -
it has lovely meter, and a most suitable ending.

:D