Cicero [22] quotes Aristotle as affirming that there was no such man
as Orpheus. But Aristotle is at least single in that opinion. And
there are too many circumstances known respecting Orpheus, and which
have obtained the consenting voice of all antiquity, to allow us to
call in question his existence. He was a native of Thrace, and from
that country migrated into Greece. He travelled into Egypt for the
purpose of collecting there the information necessary to the
accomplishment of his ends. He died a violent death; and, as is almost
universally affirmed, fell a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of
the women of his native soil. [23]
Orpheus was doubtless a poet; though it is not probable that any of
his genuine productions have been handed down to us. He was, as all
the poets of so remote a period were, extremely accomplished in all
the arts of vocal and instrumental music. He civilised the rude
inhabitants of Greece, and subjected them to order and law. He formed
them into communities. He is said by Aristophanes [24] and Horace [25]
to have reclaimed the savage man, from slaughter, and an indulgence in
food that was loathsome and foul. And this has with sufficient
probability been interpreted to mean, that he found the race of men
among whom he lived cannibals, and that, to cure them the more
completely of this horrible practice, he taught them to be contented
to subsist upon the fruits of the earth. [26] Music and poetry are
understood to have been made specially instrumental by him to the
effecting this purpose. He is said to have made the hungry lion and
the famished tiger obedient to his bidding, and to put off their wild
and furious natures.
This is interpreted by Horace [27] and other recent expositors to mean
no more than that he reduced the race of savages as he found them, to
order and civilisation. But it was at first perhaps understood more
literally. We shall not do justice to the traditions of these remote
times, if we do not in imagination transport ourselves among them, and
teach ourselves to feel their feelings, and conceive their conceptions.
Orpheus lived in a time when all was enchantment and prodigy. Gifted
and extraordinary persons in those ages believed that they were endowed
with marvellous prerogatives, and acted upon that belief. We may
occasionally observe, even in these days of the dull and the literal,
how great is the ascendancy of the man over the beast, when he feels a
full and entire confidence in that ascendancy. The eye and the gesture
of man cannot fail to produce effects, incredible till they are seen.
Magic was the order of the day; and the enthusiasm of its heroes was
raised to the highest pitch, and attended with no secret misgivings.
We are also to consider that, in all operations of a magical nature,
there is a wonderful mixture of frankness and _bonhommie_ with a
strong vein of cunning and craft. Man in every age is full of
incongruous and incompatible principles; and, when we shall cease to
be inconsistent, we shall cease to be men.
It is difficult fully to explain what is meant by the story of Orpheus
and Eurydice; but in its circumstances it bears a striking resemblance
to what has been a thousand times recorded respecting the calling up
of the ghosts of the dead by means of sorcery. The disconsolate
husband has in the first place recourse to the resistless aid of
music. [28] After many preparatives he appears to have effected his
purpose, and prevailed upon the powers of darkness to allow him the
presence of his beloved. She appears in the sequel however to have
been a thin and a fleeting shadow. He is forbidden to cast his eyes on
her; and, if he had obeyed this injunction, it is uncertain how the
experiment would have ended. He proceeds however, as he is commanded,
towards the light of day. He is led to believe that his consort is
following his steps. He is beset with a multitude of unearthly
phenomena. He advances for some time with confidence. At length he is
assailed with doubts. He has recourse to the auricular sense, to know
if she is following him. He can hear nothing. Finally he can endure
this uncertainty no longer; and, in defiance of the prohibition he has
received, cannot refrain from turning his head to ascertain whether he
is baffled, and has spent all his labour in vain. He sees her; but no
sooner he sees her, than she becomes evanescent and impalpable;
farther and farther she retreats before him; she utters a shrill cry,
and endeavours to articulate; but she grows more and more
imperceptible; and in the conclusion he is left with the scene around
him in all respects the same as it had been before his incantations.
The result of the whole that is known of Orpheus, is, that he was an
eminently great and virtuous man, but was the victim of singular
calamity.
We have not yet done with the history of Orpheus. As has been said, he
fell a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of the women of his native
soil. They are affirmed to have torn him limb from limb. His head,
divided from his body, floated down the waters of the Hebrus, and
miraculously, as it passed along to the sea, it was still heard to
exclaim in mournful accents, Eurydice, Eurydice! [29] At length it was
carried ashore on the island of Lesbos. [30] Here, by some
extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, it found a resting-place
in a fissure of a rock over-arched by a cave, and, thus domiciliated,
is said to have retained the power of speech, and to have uttered
oracles. Not only the people of Lesbos resorted to it for guidance in
difficult questions, but also the Asiatic Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia;
and its fame and character for predicting future events even extended
to Babylon. [31]