Ovid’s Metamorphoses #070/111: “The Death of Orpheus”

What this project is about.  

This one is from Book 11.

How long it took to read this (aloud): 5 mins 33s

What it’s “about”: Now that is what I call a grisly end. And he still can’t look back at his missus!!

Words I didn’t know: none

Quotable quotes: 

The songs that Orpheus sang brought creatures round him, 

AH beasts, all birds, all stones held in their spell 

But look! There on a hill that overlooked the plain, 

A crowd of raging women stood, their naked breasts 

Scarce covered by strips of fur They gazed at Orpheus 

Still singing, his frail lyre in one hand 

Her wild hair in the wind, one naked demon cried, 

“Look at the pretty boy who will not have us'” 

And shouting tossed a spear aimed at his mouth.

AND

A cloud of spears were thrown which flew apart 

And dropped to earth, steered by the singer’s voice. 

The screams of women, clapping of hands on breasts and thighs, 

The clattering tympanum soon won their way 

Above the poet’s music; spears found their aim, 

And stones turned red, streaked by the singer’s blood.

AND

The birds, still with the echoes of Orpheus’ music 

Chiming through their veins, began to fly away — 

Then snakes and wild things (once his pride to charm) 

Turned toward their homes again and disappeared. 

Now, as wild birds of prey swoop down to kill 

An owl struck by a blinding light at noon, 

Or as when dawn breaks over an open circus 

To show a stag bleeding and put to death by dogs, 

Such was the scene as Maenads came at Orpheus, 

Piercing his flesh with sharpened boughs of laurel, 

Tearing his body with blood-streaming hands, 

Whipping his sides with branches torn from trees;

AND

The saddened birds sobbed loud for Orpheus; 

All wept the multitude of beasts, 

Stones, and trees, all those who came to hear 

The songs he sang, yes, even the charmed trees 

Dropped all their leaves as if they shaved their hair. 

Then it was said the rivers swelled with tears, 

That dryads, naiads draped their nakedness 

In black and shook their hair wild for the world to see. 

Scattered in blood, and tossed in bloody grasses, 

Dismembered arm from shoulder, knee from thigh, 

The poet’s body lay, yet by a miracle the River Hebrus 

Caught head and lyre as they dropped and carried them 

Midcurrent down the stream.

How it lands to my eco-sensibility: xx

Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : xx

What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx

To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx

Further research questions: xx

Anything else: xx