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Orpheus
Greek mythology · hero · music, the backward glance
The musician whose lyre moved stones and beasts, who sang his way into the underworld to reclaim his dead wife Eurydice. She was his on one condition, that he not look back before the light. He looked back.
Stories
The Quest for the Golden Fleece
Jason sails the Argo to the world's edge with Orpheus's lyre keeping the rowers' time. Eros's arrow makes the sorceress Medea love him; she tames the bronze bulls, drugs the sleepless dragon, and betrays her own house to hand him the Fleece.
Orpheus and Eurydice
Orpheus sings his way into the underworld, and Hades and Persephone, moved for the only time, release his dead wife on one condition: he must not look back before the light. In the last steps he turns, and loses her twice.