Orpheus and Eurydice

The origins of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth go back at least to the 6th century BCE and likely earlier than that. The earliest extant appearance of the name Orpheus is in a fragment from a work by the Greek poet Ibycus, from around 530 BCE; it translates as “Orpheus famous-of-name.” It is probable that for hundreds of years, there were two versions of the myth in circulation: a version in which Orpheus is successful in his mission to bring Eurydice back from Hades, and a lesser-known tragic version in which he fails. The existence of the former can be ascertained from the poem “Song of Bion,” a tribute to the Greek poet Bion, who flourished around 280 BCE, and other sources, including Euripides’s play, Alcestis (480 BCE). However, the earliest extant versions of the full myth are the tragic ones by Virgil and, about 40 years later, by Ovid, which quickly became canonical. The basic facts of the story were reiterated by Pseudo-Apollodorus, the name given traditionally to the compiler of a compendium of myths in the first or second century CE.