Eurydice was a tree spirit. A nymph. Orpheus was a regular human. But they were in love. Everyone who passed them could tell. On their wedding day, Eurydice fell. By the time Orpheus was at her side, she was dead, a snake slithering away into the grass. Orpheus was heartbroken. After her funeral, he traveled to the underworld, where he played his lute, putting to sleep the giant three headed dog, Cerberus. He continued, reaching the palace where Hades and Persephone sat, the king and queen of the underworld, but Orpheus wasn't intimidated. He pled for his love to live just a few more years. Singing a beautiful song before all of the underworld stood still. Sisyphus stopped rolling his boulder, Tantalus stopped reaching for the water he could never drink, the furies wept at his song, and Hades agreed. One one condition. He was to trust his love to follow him out of the underworld and not look back. HE agreed and started out of the underworld. He was unable to hear her footsteps, but still he climbed, until the last step, where he didn't trust she was following him and looked behind him. His eyes met hers and she fell, deep back down into the depths of the underworld. He wasn't allowed back in, so he sat back in the overworld, singing and writing poems. Once he died, the birds and the brooks mourned him, singing his songs till the world ends. He and Eurydice can be seen walking on the banks of the river stix, sometimes next to each other, sometime her in front and sometimes him, looking back as many time as he wants. From him, the art form of love poems was created.
Ted Ed, "Orpheus" by PEGGY, and I used kleki for the art.
