ORPHEUS Greek legendary hero with solarand wind attributes.
Son of Apollo or the Thracian
river deity Oiagros and the muse
Calliope. He was a musician,
poet, seer, theologian, and reformed the rites of Dionysus
Zagreus. With the golden tones
of the lyre he invented he tamed
wild beasts and birds and moved
stones and trees (rain clouds).
An Argonaut, he saved his shipmates by playing on his magic
lyre as they passed the island of
sirens and drowned out the siren's
song. When Eurydice, his wife,
died Orpheus moved Aides to
pity with his music, and the underworld deity consented to release Eurydice on condition Orpheus should not look upon her
until they reached the upper world.
Just before he stepped out of
Hades he glanced back, and she
vanished, thus dawn disappears
with the full emergence of the sun.
The prolonged grief of Orpheus
(failure to provide fertility) enraged the Thracian maenads and,
while engaged in a Dionysiac
orgy, they tore him to pieces, a
fate also suffered by Pentheus.
The fragments of his body were
collected by the muses and buried
at the foot of Mount Qlympus;
his -head they threw into the Hebrus River.- whence it drifted into the sea, by which it was carried to Lesbos, where it continued to sing and prophesy. His
dismemberment probably derives
from the Osiris legend. His
discoursing head is an analogue
of those of Bran and Mimir, and
the conception probably had its,
origin in the ancient practice of
skull divination. His irresistible
music corresponds to the music
of Amphion, Angus, Krishna, and
the Pied Piper of Hamelin. His
descent into the world of darkness and return parallels that of
Izanagi. One who lost his wife
because he agreed to conditions
he did not fulfil, he resembles
Lot's wife, Psyche. His name
answers to the Vedic Ribhu.
Jobes, 1962:1216.