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| Nicolas Poussin Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice 1648 oil on canvas Louvre, Paris |
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| Octave Lacour after George Frederick Watts Orpheus and Eurydice ca. 1886-91 wood-engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Orpheus ca. 1520-25 woodcut British Museum |
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| Agostino Veneziano Orpheus with Cerberus 1528 engraving British Museum |
ORPHEUS' PLEA TO THE GODS OF THE UNDERWORLD
Ye powers, who under earth your realms extend,
To whom all mortals must one day descend;
If here 'tis granted sacred truth to tell;
I come not, curious, to explore your hell;
Nor come to boast (by vain ambition fir'd)
How Cerberus at my approach retir'd.
My wife alone I seek; for her lov'd sake
These terrors I support, this journey take,
She luckless wandering, or by fate misled,
Chanc'd on a lurking viper's crest to tread;
The vengeful beast inflam'd with fury starts,
And through her heel his deathful venom darts.
Thus was she snatch'd untimely to her tomb;
Her growing years cut short, and springing bloom.
Long I my loss endeavour'd to sustain,
And strongly strove, but strove, alas! in vain:
At length I yielded, won by mighty love:
Well known is that omnipotence above!
But here, I doubt, his unfelt influence fails;
And yet a hope within my heart prevails,
That here, e'en here, he has been known of old;
At least if truth be by tradition told;
If fame of former rapes belief may find,
You both by love, and love alone, were join'd.
Now by the horrors which these realms surround;
By the vast chaos of these depths profound;
By the sad silence which eternal reigns
O'er all the waste of these wide-stretching plains;
Let me again Eurydice receive,
Let fate her quickspun thread of life re-weave.
– from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by William Congreve (1717)
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| Anonymous Swiss Goldsmith Snuffbox with Orpheus, Eurydice, Persephone, Pluto, Cerberus 1790s gold, enamel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Peter Paul Rubens and workshop Orpheus and Eurydice leaving the Underworld 1636-37 oil on canvas Prado, Madrid |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Orpheus leading Eurydice from the Underworld 1861 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Marcantonio Orpheus and Eurydice ca. 1510-27 engraving British Museum |
They called forth Eurydice who was as yit among
The newcome Ghosts, and limped of her wound. Her husband tooke
Her with condicion that he should not backe uppon her looke,
Untill the tyme that hee were past the bounds of Limbo quyght:
Or else to lose his gyft. They tooke a path that steepe upryght
Rose darke and full of foggye mist. And now they were within
A kenning of the upper earth, when Orphye did begin
To dowt him lest shee followed not, and through an eager love
Desyrous for to see her, he his eyes did backward move.
Immediately shee slipped backe. He retching out his hands,
Desyrous to bee caught and for to ketch her grasping stands.
But nothing save the slippry aire (unhappy man) he caught.
Shee dying now the second tyme complaynd of Orphye naught.
For why what had shee to complayne, onlesse it were of love?
Which made her husband backe agen his eyes uppon her move?
Her last farewell shee spake so soft, that scarce he heard the sound,
And then revolted to the place in which he had her found . . .
– from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Arthur Golding (1567)
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| Ubaldo Gandolfi Orpheus looking back at Eurydice before 1781 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Antonio Canova Orpheus 1776 marble Museo Correr, Venice |
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| Timoteo Viti Orpheus before 1523 drawing British Museum |
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| Alessandro Padovanino Orpheus enchanting the Animals before 1649 oil on canvas Prado, Madrid |
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| Jacob Hoefnagel Orpheus charming the Animals 1613 watercolor and gouache on vellum Morgan Library, New York |
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| Nicolas de Bruyn Orpheus and the Animals 1594 engraving British Museum |