Monday, April 23, 2007

My Orpheus laundry

I have some Orpheus issues, I've not finished wrestling with this myth.

From what I've read (scanned), most academic interpretation of Orpheus looking back, is understood as Orpheus' humanity as a noble act. This I find a difficult position to agree with, from the few primary sources I've looked in to.

Ovid describes this as an act performed out of anxiety, but that doesn't read to me as a noble human. Virgil, in The Georgics, does not give a word to describe Orpheus's action. These are our two leading Roman writers, but where are the Greeks?

Ainslie tells me that it is in The Odyssey, referred to; I have yet to locate it.

In the operas (such as in Monteverdi L'Orfeo- Ainslie) depicts the scene as Eurydice calling after Orpheus. Eurydice asks why does he not look back, and therefore why does he not love her. After her continuous calling, Orpheus looks back out of love. That works - but where are the Greek writers?

Or is it that I'm to praise Orpheus as the noble human in his failing? Then why is Ildith's act, in the Lot story, not interpreted as the noble human; surely temptation is a human act?

Ainslie challenges - Ildith and Lot is an obedience story - a morality tale. the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is not. Context is the thing. I think my comparison is a fair one, the exercise brings out the meaning out of the two stories. Where I have perhaps gone wrong is that I failed to recognise that one is to be read as a story of events that took place and that the other is a myth, that is a difference to be respected.

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