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Orpheus and Eurydice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1952
References
page 113 note 1 ‘Orphée et Eurydice avant Virgile’ in Melanges d'archtologie et d'histoire, xlix (1932), p. 606.Google Scholar
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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.
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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.
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page 125 note 2 Frank, T., Vergil: a Biography, p. 24.Google Scholar
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