Pověst o Orfeovi – vypracovala RNDr. Dagmar Benešová

Orpheus

Orpheus was a son of the god Apollon and the Muse Kalliope. He was the best singer and musician of the Greek myths. When he was playing the lyre, wild animals were coming to him quietly, the birds were arriving and even trees and rocks were moving to get to him. The wolf was lying next to the lamb and listening to Orpheus emotionally, the aspen was not moving its leaves and the platane was not casting a shadow. Harmony and peace prevailed troughout the nature. Orpheus was not renown just for his musical art but also for his love for his wife Euridice. She died after venomous snake bite. Desperate Orpheus did not want to live without her and so he went to the underworld to ask the underworld ruler Hades to give him his wife back or let him to stay with her in the underworld. Charon, who transferred dead people across the river Styx, was mollified by Orpheus´ music and so he transferred him to the underworld. Orpheus sang the song about his love to Euridica to Hades and his wife Persephone. The song touched the whole underworld. Tantalos forgot his hunger and thirst, Sisyphus stopped moving his rock, fierce Erinies started to cry and even Persephone cried emotionally. Hades promised to lead Orpheus and Euridica out of the underworld when Orpheus satisfied a condition. He could not look back on the way. However Orpheus did not satisfy the condition, he looked back and so he had to return alone without his wife. For seven days and seven nights he was sitting without food or drink on the bank of the underworld river. He was crying and begging but it was futile. Then he suffered for Euridice´s death and he never looked at another woman more. Four years later he met his love in the end. He was torn apart by angry women. They threw his head and his lyre into the river Hebros. The whole nature was frightened about that crime. The rocks cried and rivers flooded by rocks ´tears.