A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

shadows of the trees she would stand--up the woodland paths she
walked, where her little feet fluttered the dry leaves as she passed. Her
face was white as a lily in the moonlight, and ever she held out her
arms to Orpheus:
"At that elm-vista's end I trace, Dimly thy sad leave-taking face,
Eurydice! Eurydice! The tremulous leaves repeat to me Eurydice!
Eurydice!"
Lowell.
[Illustration: SWIFTLY HE TURNED, AND FOUND HIS WIFE
BEHIND HIM]
For Orpheus it was a good day when Jason, chief of the Argonauts,
sought him out to bid him come with the other heroes and aid in the
quest of the Golden Fleece.
"Have I not had enough of toil and of weary wandering far and wide,"
sighed Orpheus. "In vain is the skill of the voice which my goddess
mother gave me; in vain have I sung and laboured; in vain I went down
to the dead, and charmed all the kings of Hades, to win back Eurydice,
my bride. For I won her, my beloved, and lost her again the same day,
and wandered away in my madness even to Egypt and the Libyan sands,
and the isles of all the seas.... While I charmed in vain the hearts of men,
and the savage forest beasts, and the trees, and the lifeless stones, with
my magic harp and song, giving rest, but finding none."[3]
But in the good ship Argo, Orpheus took his place with the others and
sailed the watery ways, and the songs that Orpheus sang to his
shipmates and that tell of all their great adventures are called the Songs
of Orpheus, or the Orphics, to this day.
Many were the mishaps and disasters that his music warded off. With it
he lulled monsters to sleep; more powerful to work magic on the hearts
of men were his melodies than were the songs of the sirens when they
tried to capture the Argonauts by their wiles, and in their downward,
destroying rush his music checked mountains.