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Orpheus and Eurydice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. M. Bowra
Affiliation:
Wadham College, Oxford

Extract

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has in recent years received attention from Heurgon, Norden, Guthrie, Linforth, and Ziegler, who have in different ways supplemented the admirable article by Gruppe in Roscher's Lexikon published fifty years ago. Unless new texts or new monuments are found, it does not seem likely that fresh evidence will be forthcoming to solve old problems, and our task is rather to make a constructive use of what evidence we have. This paper attempts to consider only one part of the whole question, the versions of the story which lie behind the familiar form. Much said here is not new, but perhaps the attempt to sort out some points is worth making, especially as the experts disagree on several important matters.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1952

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References

page 113 note 1 Orphée et Eurydice avant Virgile’ in Melanges d'archtologie et d'histoire, xlix (1932), p. 606.Google Scholar

page 113 note 2 ‘Orpheus und Eurydice’, in S-Ber Akad. Berl., 1934.Google Scholar

page 113 note 3 Orpheus and Greek Religion, London, 1935.Google Scholar

page 113 note 4 The Arts of Orpheus, Berkeley, , 1935.Google Scholar

page 113 note 5 R.-E. xviii. 1268–80.Google Scholar

page 114 note 1 Norden, , op. cit., pp. 54 ff. plausibly connects the triple fragor, which in Virgil greets Orpheus’ look, with a summons from the underworld, but we cannot decide whether it comes from the Hellenistic poem or from some older source, though this would hardly be, as he suggests, about Orpheus‘ descent to Hades. The theme seems to have been elaborated, if misunderstood, by Lucan: gaudent a luce relictam Eurydicen iterum sperantes Orphea Manes, (fr. 3) but of course he may have taken it from Virgil.Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 Ovid repeats this idea of a double death in a lost poem: bis rapitur vixitque semel (fr. 7 Morel). Cf. Seneca, , H.O. 1089, quae nata est iterum peril.Google Scholar

page 117 note 1 It is not certain, and perhaps not even probable, that the poem ended at this point. It may well have continued to the death of Orpheus and the miraculous fate of his severed head.

page 117 note 2 Aulus Gellius 13. 27 quotes the line as but ‘ seems superior to both because it is more likely to have been corrpheus and the miraculous fate of his rupted and because Lucian (or Lucillius) has it when he incorporates the line into an elegiac poem in Anth. Pal. vi. 164. 1.Google Scholar

page 118 note 1 No problem is raised by Manilius's other reference to Orpheus and his lyre: qua quondam ceperat Orpheus and his lyre: qua quondam ceperat Orpheus omne quod attigerat cantu, manesque per ipsos fecit iter domuitque infernas carmine leges.

page 118 note 2 Aen. 6. 119 ff. is of course concerned only with Orpheus’ descent and is not relevant to our questionGoogle Scholar,

page 118 note 3 Aesch, . fr. 161, Soph. fr. 770, Propert. 4. 11. 2.Google Scholar

page 120 note 1 Diodorus, writing in Virgil's lifetime, tells how Orpheus persuades Persephone to release Eurydice (4. 25. 3), but since he does not say what the outcome was, his evidence is not relevant to our problem.

page 121 note 1 Sir John Beazley tells me that, since we have only copies, the original relief cannot be dated more closely than between c. 430 and 400 B.C.

page 121 note 2 Gruppe, in Roscher, , Lexikon der Mythobe logie, iii. 1194–7.Google Scholar

page 122 note 1 Hartwig, , Arch. Ztg. 1884, p. 263, Taf. 19b.Google Scholar

page 122 note 2 Ziegler, , op. cit., p. 227.Google Scholar

page 122 note 3 Gruppe, , op. cit., p. 1162.Google Scholar

page 122 note 4 Cf. Norden, on Aen. 6. 119–20.Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 Athen. Mitt. lxiii/lxiv (19381939), pp. 107 ff.Google Scholar

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page 123 note 3 Homerische Untersuchungen, pp. 222–6.Google Scholar

page 124 note 1 Cf. Linforth, , op. cit., p. 123 ff.Google Scholar

page 124 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 3639Google Scholar; Aeneis Buck vi, pp. 223–4.Google Scholar

page 125 note 1 Donat.-Suet. 27 (42).

page 125 note 2 Frank, T., Vergil: a Biography, p. 24.Google Scholar