From VIRGIL--Georgic IV. 457-527

The fair, young bride of Orpheus, as she fled From Aristæus who designed her ill, With hasty feet, along the river bank Of Hebrus, found her death. For in her way There lurked a baleful serpent ’mid the grass.

Full long the choir of Dryads mourned her fate, And set the mountains wailing with their woe. Pangæus answered back to Rhodope, and grief Held all the land of Rhesus, dear to Mars; And Hebrus, weeping, rolled to distant shores The story of the dead Eurydice.

But Orpheus in his sorrow touched his harp, And, sitting by the wild beach all alone, Sang from the rising till the setting sun Of his own sweet, lost wife Eurydice. Till, drawing solace to his wounded love, Through the fierce jaws of Tænarus he passed, The gates of Hades, and the gloomy grove, All thick with darkest horror, and, at last, Entered the drear abodes where Pluto reigns Among the dead—inexorable king.

And then he put his fingers to the strings And sang of her he loved, Eurydice; And made such sweet, enchanting melody That all the ghosts of Erebus were charmed, And hied from all recesses at the sound; Gathering around him, many as the birds That hide themselves by thousands ’mid the leaves Of some sweet-smelling grove, when eventide Or wintry shower calls them from the hills.

The shades of mothers, sires and mighty men, Of maids for whom the torch was never lit, And boys whose pyres their parents’ eyes had seen, Listened, enchained, and for a while forgot The slimy weeds that grew upon the banks, Of black Cocytus, and the hateful Styx, Whose nine slow streams shut out the happy world. And even Tartarus, Death’s deepest home, Was stricken with amazement; and the rage Of snake-tressed Furies ceased; and Cerberus Restrained his triple roar, and hellish blasts Forbore a while to turn Ixion’s wheel.

And now, all danger past, to upper air He turned his eager feet, Eurydice Restored, near-following (for Proserpine Had so enjoined), when Orpheus, mad with joy And longing to behold her face once more, Paused and looked back, unmindful. Fatal look, That robbed him of his treasure on the verge Of full fruition in the world’s broad light! No hope of mercy; Hell no mercy knows For broken law. This Orpheus learned too late, When triple thunder bellowed through the deeps Of dark Avernus.

Then Eurydice: “What frenzy, Orpheus, has possessed thy soul To ruin thee and me, ah! wretched me, Whom now the Fates call back to Hades’ gloom! Alas! the sleep of death is on my eyes. Farewell, my Orpheus! darkness hems me round— Farewell! in vain I stretch weak hands to thee— Thine, thine no more! Farewell! Farewell!” She said, And vanished from his sight away, as smoke Fades into viewless air, nor saw she more Her Orpheus.

He in vain the fleeting shade Sought to restrain with outspread hands; in vain Essayed to speak, dumb-stricken with surprise; In vain, to cross the gloomy Stygian wave. Alas! what could he do, or whither go, Since she was gone, the sum of all his joy? Or, with what tears, what plaintive, moving words, Seek respite from the gods that rule below For her who, shivering, crossed the darksome stream?

So passed she from him; and, for seven long months Beneath a rock by Strymon’s lonely flood He wailed her fate and his, till all the caves Re-echoed mournfully, and savage beasts, Assuaged, knew milder breasts, and strength of oaks Was captive led by magic of his song. Even as, in woods, beneath a poplar’s shade Lone Philomel laments her callow brood, Robbed from the nest by cruel, churlish hands; And she, poor childless mother, all night long, Perched on a branch, renews the doleful strain, And with her plaints makes all the grove resound; So Orpheus mourned Eurydice, nor dreamed Of other love, nor other nuptial tie. Alone, ’mid Boreal ice, and by the banks Of snow-girt Tanais, and through the plains That feel the chill breath of Niphæan hills, He sang the loss of sweet Eurydice And Pluto’s bootless gift. And even when The Thracian maidens maddened at the slight Of their own beauty in such lasting grief And wild from Bacchic orgies, slew the bard, Strewing the broad fields with his severed limbs; Then, even then, when Hebrus bore away The tuneful head torn from the marble neck, The cold lips, faithful still to their lost love, Murmured, “Eurydice! Eurydice!” And the sad banks replied “Eurydice!”