40 Fun Facts About Orpheus

Which instrument did Orpheus play so sweetly that wild beasts, trees and even rocks were said to follow him?

Lyre in hand he could charm anything, and after his death the instrument was said to be placed in the sky as the constellation Lyra.

What did Orpheus do on the climb out of the underworld that lost Eurydice to the dead forever?

Looked back at her is all it took: Hades had freed Eurydice on condition that Orpheus walk ahead and not turn until both had reached the upper world.

What caused the death of Eurydice soon after her wedding to Orpheus, as she walked through a meadow?

A snake bit her on the ankle as she walked with the naiads, in Ovid's telling; an earlier version has her stepping on it while fleeing an unwanted admirer.

Which monstrous guardian of the underworld's gates fell silent when Orpheus played and sang his way past?

Cerberus stood with his three jaws hanging open and forgot to bark, one Roman poet wrote, and even the Furies stopped to listen.

Sailing with the Argonauts, Orpheus played loudly enough to drown out which creatures and save the crew?

The Sirens still claimed one sailor: sharp-eared Butes heard them and leapt overboard, and the goddess Aphrodite had to carry him to safety.

Which band of women tore Orpheus limb from limb during their wild rites, in most versions of his death?

The Maenads served Dionysus, yet Ovid has the god punish them for the killing by rooting their feet in the earth and turning them into oak trees.

Which part of Orpheus was said to go on singing as it floated down the river Hebrus to the sea?

His head drifted on beside his instrument, still murmuring, while the river banks answered; it was later buried at a shrine that became a famous oracle.

Which dance is now performed around the world to the 'Galop infernal' from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld?

The can-can only claimed the tune in the 1890s, after Offenbach's death, when Paris cabarets adopted his galop for their high-kicking dancers.

Which Baz Luhrmann film did its director say drew on the Orpheus myth, with a young poet as its hero?

Moulin Rouge! sends its poet into a Paris underworld of cabaret to win a singer he loves, and like Orpheus he leaves without her.

Which goddess was so moved by Orpheus's song in the underworld that she agreed to let Eurydice go?

Persephone and her husband could not bring themselves to refuse him, Ovid wrote, after Orpheus reminded the royal couple that love had once joined them too.

Which hero took Orpheus along on the voyage of the Argo, where his music kept the rowers in time?

Jason had reason to be glad of him: when a quarrel among the crew nearly came to blows, Orpheus calmed everyone with a song about how the world began.

Which god, sometimes named as the father of Orpheus, is said to have given him his instrument and taught him to play?

Apollo is the god Orpheus honoured above all others late in life, one lost tragedy said, climbing before dawn each day to greet the sunrise.

Which of the nine Muses, the patron of epic poetry, is usually named as the mother of Orpheus?

Calliope taught her son to make verses for singing, and after he was killed she and her sisters are said to have gathered his remains for burial.

Orpheus is called a bard of which ancient region, where his father Oeagrus was king?

Thrace was thought to have had no writing in his day, which is one reason ancient critics doubted that the poems passed down under his name were really his.

In Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo, which figure does the hero lull to sleep with his music to slip across the Styx?

Charon refuses him passage even after a long aria of flattery, so Orfeo plays until the ferryman nods off, then steals the boat and rows himself over.

Which condemned king is said to have sat down on his boulder to listen when Orpheus sang in the underworld?

Sisyphus was not the only one to pause: Ovid says Tantalus stopped reaching for water, Ixion's wheel stood still and the Furies wept for the first time.

In the Broadway musical Hadestown, which Greek god narrates the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to the audience?

Hermes welcomes the audience in the opening number and returns at the end to explain why the sad tale is worth telling all over again.

The Oscar-winning film Black Orpheus moves the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to Carnival time in which city?

Rio de Janeiro's hillside favelas stood in for ancient Greece, and two songs from the film's soundtrack went on to become classics of bossa nova.

Which Roman poet told the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Georgics, a poem about farming and beekeeping?

Virgil made it the finale of a beekeeping lesson: a farmer whose hives have died learns he is being punished for causing the death of the bride.

Which composer's opera Orfeo ed Euridice breaks with the myth by restoring the heroine to life at the end?

Gluck has the god of love step in to revive her as a reward for the hero's devotion, and the opera closes with a ballet and a chorus of praise.

Which Greek island, later the home of the poet Sappho, claimed the shrine where an oracle of Orpheus spoke?

Lesbos is where the waves were said to carry what was left of him, and the fame of the oracle there was said to reach as far as Babylon.

In the Georgics, which keeper of bees was chasing Eurydice through the grass when she met her death?

Aristaeus paid for it with his hives: the bees sickened and died until he sacrificed cattle to make amends, and new swarms rose from the carcasses.

Which long poem by Ovid tells of Orpheus losing Eurydice and of his death in its tenth and eleventh books?

Metamorphoses lets Orpheus do much of the talking: after losing Eurydice he sings a string of other myths, the story of Pygmalion among them.

Which French poet and filmmaker directed the 1950 film Orphée, in which mirrors are doorways to the land of the dead?

Jean Cocteau had his hero pull on surgical gloves and walk straight through the glass, an effect filmed with a vat of mercury standing in for the mirror.

Which American playwright wrote Orpheus Descending, about a wandering musician who unsettles a small Southern town?

Tennessee Williams reworked it from his first professionally produced play, Battle of Angels, which by his own account had failed spectacularly in Boston in 1940.

Which singer-songwriter wrote the musical Hadestown, first performed in Vermont years before it became a concept album?

Anaïs Mitchell sang the heroine herself in an early staging, and the Broadway version she later built won eight Tony Awards, Best Musical among them.

In which DC comic series is Orpheus the son of the hero, with Death and Destruction for an aunt and uncle?

The Sandman gives Orpheus a father whose other name, Morpheus, is one letter longer than his own, in a retelling of the myth called The Song of Orpheus.

Which philosopher has a speaker mock Orpheus as a coward who entered the underworld alive instead of dying for love?

Plato has the speaker add that the gods showed Orpheus only a phantom of his wife, then let him die at the hands of women as a punishment.

Which birds were said to sing more sweetly over the grave of Orpheus than they did anywhere else?

Nightingales nesting on the tomb were said to sing louder as well as more sweetly, a local boast that the travel writer Pausanias wrote down centuries later.

Which German-language poet wrote the 55 Sonnets to Orpheus in a three-week burst of work in 1922?

Rainer Maria Rilke dedicated them as a memorial to Wera Knoop, a childhood playmate of his daughter who had died in her teens.

The Muses are said to have buried the remains of Orpheus at Leibethra, on the slopes of which mountain?

Mount Olympus overlooked a town with a doom attached: an oracle warned that Leibethra would fall if the sun ever saw his bones, and a flood later destroyed it.

Which hero is said to have killed Linus, the brother of Orpheus, in a rage during a music lesson?

Heracles was put on trial for the killing and walked free, citing a law that excused anyone who was defending himself against an attacker.

Followers of the 'Orphic life' named after Orpheus gave up meat, beans and which other everyday food?

Eggs also sit at the heart of Orphic myth, which tells how the first god hatched from a shining cosmic egg at the beginning of the world.

The Orphic tablets buried with Greek initiates, giving directions for the afterlife, are thin sheets of which metal?

Gold leaves found in graves from Thessaly to Crete tell the dead soul to avoid the water of Forgetfulness and drink from the pool of Memory instead.

Which god came to bless the marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice with a torch that only smoked and sputtered?

Hymen, the god of wedding ceremonies, gave no blessing and no smile that day, Ovid says, and his torch would not catch however hard he waved it.

In which country's mythology does the god Izanagi, like Orpheus, go down to the land of the dead to fetch his wife?

Japan's creator god found that his wife Izanami had already eaten the food of the dead, and he ended up sealing the way out with a huge boulder.

In the medieval English poem Sir Orfeo, who steals the hero's wife away from beneath a grafted tree?

The fairy king is so charmed by Orfeo's harping that he rashly promises any reward, and Orfeo asks for his wife, so this version ends happily.

The Krewe of Orpheus, co-founded by singer Harry Connick Jr, parades in New Orleans during which celebration?

Mardi Gras crowds see it roll on Lundi Gras, the evening before Fat Tuesday, and its very first parade set a record with 700 riders.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, founded in New York in 1972, is known for performing without which figure?

A conductor is replaced by the players themselves, who rotate the leading roles from piece to piece and won a Grammy Award for an album of Stravinsky miniatures.

In which Italian city was Jacopo Peri's Euridice, the oldest surviving opera, first staged at a royal wedding?

Florence heard it at the Pitti Palace in 1600, with the composer himself singing Orpheus, when a Medici bride married Henry IV of France.