Orphée

Orphée is a legendary hero of the Greek Mythologie, wire of the king of Thrace Œagre and MUSE Calliope. He is the mythical founder of a movement religious called orphism.

Myth

The legend of Orphée, one of most obscure of Greek mythology, is related to the religion of the mysteries like to a crowned literature going until the origins of Christianity. mythical Aède of Thrace, wire of king Œagre and the MUSE Calliope, it could by the accents of its quadrant charm the wild animals and managed to move the inanimate beings. It was filled multiple gifts by Apollon, and one tells that it added two cords with the traditional quadrant with seven cords which the god gave him, in homage to the nine Muses, protective of arts and the letters, to which his/her mother belonged. Hero traveller, it took part in the forwarding of the Argonautes during which it triumphed over the sirens and went until to Egypt, then returned to Greece founded the orphic mysteries of Éleusis. At the end of its tour, it returned to Thrace, in the kingdom of his father.

His wife, Eurydice (a dryade), refused the advances of the shepherd Aristée, and, fleeing, was bitten with the calf by a snake. She died and went down to the kingdom from the Enfers. Orphée which been able, after having deadened its music enchanter Cerberus, the monstrous dog with three heads which kept the entry of it, to approach the god Hadès. He arrived, thanks to his music, to make it bend, and this one let it set out again with its beloved in the condition that she would follow it and that it would not be turned over as much as they would not have returned both in the world of the alive ones. But at the time to leave the Hells, Orphée, anxious, could not prevent oneself from being turned over towards Eurydice and this one was delighted for him definitively.

Orphée was shown thereafter inconsolable. Bacchantes or Ménades tested of it a sharp spite and shredded it. Its head, thrown in the Hébros river, settled on the shores of the island of Lesbos, ground of Poetry. The Muses, éplorées, collected the members to bury them with the foot of the mount Olympe, in Leibèthres.

Artistic evocations

The myth of Orphée inspired many artists, inter alia:

Orfeo (1607), opera of Claudio Monteverdi; In this opera, " fable in musique" , on a booklet of Alessandro Striggio, Orphée is the son of Apollo. It is not shredded by Bacchantes but has by his divine father to join it with the sky and to taste with the eternal life.
Orphée , cantata profanes Jean-Philippe Rameau;
Orfeo (Paris 1647) opera of Luigi Rossi;
Orfeo ED Euridice (1762), then Orphée and Eurydice (1774), opera of Christoph Willibald Gluck;
Orfeo I Euridike (1791) of Evstigveny Fomine, type-setter Russian (1751-1800)
animated It LED filosofo ossia Orfeo ED Euridice (1791), drama in music of Joseph Haydn;
Orphée with the Hells (1858-1874), opera-puffs out Jacques Offenbach;
Misfortunes of Orphée (1927), opera-minute of Darius Milhaud;
Descent of Orphée (1957), play of Tennessee Williams;
Orphée (1949) and the Will of Orphée (1959), Film S of Jean Cocteau;
Orphée (1951) work of Concrete music of Pierre Henry;
Orfeu Negro (1959), film of Marcel Camus;
Orphée and Eurydice (1985), Hungarian film of Istvan Gaal;
Sadness beautiful face (2004), film of Jean-Paul Civeyrac;
the Myth of Orphée (1977) of Marc Chagall
the Song of Orphée of Neil Gaiman, in the comic Sandman
Orfi with the hells (Poema has fumetti) , a cartoon written and illustrated by Dino Buzzato (1969)

Sources

(I, II, IV, passim ).
(I, 3,2).
(v. 77 and suiv.).
(v. 1032).
(I, 38).
(IV, 25).
(XIV).
(X, 1-105).
(XXXIII).
(IX, 30).
(I, 470-473).
(IV, 450-457).

See too

Orphisme
Eurydice
Texts and fragments orphic

External bonds

Aline Smeesters, “Myths of Homère, myth of Orphée: meanders of interpretation”
Marie-Adelaide Debray, “Orphée and Médée. Comparative approach of two mythical gestures”
the myth of Orphée, sources and texts
Myth of Orphée and its loves male