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ORPHEUS
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ORPHEUS , in See also:Greek See also:legend, the See also:chief representative of the See also:art of See also:song and playing on the See also:lyre, and of See also:great importance in the religious See also:history of See also:Greece. The derivation of the name is uncertain, the most probable being that which connects it with 604" dark," 6p4waIos, 6pc/vrt). In accordance with this, Orpheus may have been originally a See also:god of darkness; or the liberator from the See also:power of darkness by his See also:gift of song; or he may have been so called because his See also:rites were celebrated by See also:night (cf. See also:Dionysus Nyctelius). It is possible, but very improbable, that Orpheus was an See also:historical personage; even in See also:ancient times his existence was denied. According to Maass, he was a chthonian deity, the counterpart of Dionysus, with whom he is closely connected; J. E. See also:Harrison, however, regards him as a religious reformer from See also:Crete, who introduced the See also:doctrine of ecstasis without See also:intoxication amongst the Thracians and was slain by the votaries of the frenzied See also:ritual. S. See also:Reinach See also:sees in him the See also:fox roaming " in the darkness," to the Thracians a personification of the See also:wine-god, torn in pieces by the Bassarae (fox-maidens). Although by some he was held to be a Greek, the tradition of his Thracian origin was most generally accepted. His name does not occur in See also:Homer or See also:Hesiod, but he was known in the See also:time of See also:Ibycus (c. 530 B.c.), and See also:Pindar (522—442 B.c.) speaks of him as " the See also:father of songs." From the 6th See also:century onwards he was looked upon as one of the chief poets and musicians of antiquity, the inventor or perfecter of the lyre, who by his See also:music and singing was able not only to See also:charm the See also:wild beasts, but even to draw the trees and rocks from their places, and to See also:arrest the See also:rivers in their course. As one of the pioneers of See also:civilization, he was supposed to have taught mankind the arts of See also:medicine, See also:writing and See also:agriculture. As closely connected with religious See also:life, he was an augur and seer; practised magical arts, especially See also:astrology; founded or rendered accessible many important cults, such as those of See also:Apollo and Dionysus; instituted mystic rites, both public and private; prescribed initiatory and purificatory ritual. He was said to have visited See also:Egypt, and to have become acquainted there with the writings of See also:Moses and with the doctrine of a future life.
According to the best-known tradition, Orpheus was the son of Oeagrus, See also: Other ancient writers, however, speak of his visit to the underworld; according to See also:Plato, the infernal gods only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. After the See also:death of Eurydice, Orpheus rejected the advances of the Thracian See also:women, who, jealous of his faithfulness to the memory of his lost wife, tore him to pieces during the frenzy of the Bacchic orgies. His See also:head and lyre floated " down the See also:swift Hebrus to the Lesbian See also:shore," where the inhabitants buried his head and a See also:shrine was built in his See also:honour near Antissa. The lyre was carried to See also:heaven by the See also:Muses, and was placed amongst the stars. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his See also:body and buried them at Leibethra below See also:Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his See also:grave, while yet another legend places his See also:tomb at Dium, near Pydna in See also:Macedonia. Other accounts of his death are: that he killed himself from grief at the failure of his journey to Hades; that he was struck with See also:lightning by See also:Zeus for having revealed the mysteries of the gods to men; or he was torn to pieces by the See also:Maenads for having abandoned the cult of Dionysus for that of Apollo. According to Gruppe, the legend of the death of Orpheus is a See also:late See also:imitation of the See also:Adonis-See also:Osiris myth. Osiris, like Orpheus, is torn in pieces, and his head floats down every See also:year from Egypt to Byblus; the body of See also:Attis, the Phrygian counterpart of Adonis, like that of Orpheus, does not suffer decay. The story is repeatedof Dionysus; he is torn in pieces, and his head is carried down to See also:Lesbos. Without going so far as to assert that Orpheus is a hypo-stasis of Dionysus, there is no doubt that a See also:close connexion existed between them from very See also:early times. According to Frazer, these traditions may be " distorted reminiscences " of the practice of human See also:sacrifice, especially of divine See also:kings, the See also:object of which was to ensure fertility in the See also:animal and See also:vegetable worlds. Orpheus, in the manner of his death, was considered to personate the god Dionysus, and was thus the representative of the god torn to pieces every year, a ceremony enacted by the Bacchae in the earliest times with a human victim, afterwards with a See also:bull to represent the bull-formed god. A distinct feature of this ritual was w zo4ayta (eating the flesh of the victim raw), whereby the communicants imagined that they consumed and assimilated the god represented by the victim, and thus became filled with the divine See also:ecstasy. A. W. Bather (Journ. See also:Hell. Studies, xiv. p. 254) sees in the myth an allusion to a ritual, the object of which is the See also:expulsion of death or See also:winter. It is possible that the floating of the head of Orpheus to Lesbos has reference to the fact that the See also:island was the first See also:home of lyric See also:poetry, and may be symbolical of the route taken by the Aeolian emigrants from See also:Thessaly on their way to their new home in See also:Asia See also:Minor. The name of Orpheus is equally important in the religious history of Greece. He was the mythic founder of a religious school or See also:sect, with a See also:code of rules of life, a mystic eclectic See also:theology, a See also:system of purificatory and expiatory rites, and See also:peculiar mysteries. This school is first observable under the See also:rule of See also:Peisistratus at See also:Athens in the 6th century B.C. Its doctrines are founded on two elements: the Thraco-Phrygian See also:religion of Dionysus with its enthusiastic orgies, its mysteries and its purifications, and the tendency to philosophic See also:speculation on the nature and mutual relations of the numerous gods, See also:developed at this time by intercourse with Egypt and the See also:East, and by the quickened intercourse between different tribes and different religions in Greece itself. These causes produced similar results in different parts of Greece. The close See also:analogy between Pythagoreanism and Orphism has been recognized from See also:Herodotus (ii. Sr) to the latest See also:modern writers. Both inculcated a peculiar See also:kind of ascetic life; both had a mystical speculative theory of religion, with purificatory rites, See also:abstinence from beans, &c.; but Orphism was more especially religious, while Pythagoreanism, at least originally, inclined more to be a See also:political and philosophical creed. The rules of the Orphic life prescribed abstinence from beans, flesh, certain kinds of See also:fish, &c., the wearing of a See also:special kind of clothes, and numerous other practices and abstinences. The ritual of See also:worship was peculiar, not admitting bloody sacrifices. The belief was taught in the homogeneity of all living things, in the doctrine of See also:original See also:sin, in the transmigration of souls, in the view that the soul is entombed in the body (aWµa afjua), and that it may gradually attain perfection during connexion with a See also:series of bodies. When completely purified, it will be freed from this " circle of See also:generation" (KintXos yev4Vews), and will again become divine, as it was before its entrance into a mortal body. The chief ceremonies of the nightly ritual were sacrifice and See also:libation; See also:prayer and See also:purification; the See also:representation of sacred legends (e.g. the myth of Zagreus, the chief object of worship, who was identified with most of the numerous gods of the Orphic See also:pantheon); the See also:rape of Persephone;. and the descent into Hades. These were introduced as a " sacred explanation" (lepl koyos) of the rules and prescriptions. To these also belong the rite of wµodiayla,and the communication of liturgical formulae for the guidance of the soul of the dead See also:man on his way to the underworld, which also served as See also:credentials to the gods below. Some of the so-called " Orphic tablets," metrical See also:inscriptions engraved on small plates of See also:gold, chiefly dating from the 4th and 3rd centuries B.e., have been discovered in tombs in See also:southern See also:Italy, Crete and See also:Rome. It does not appear, however, that a regularly organized or numerous Orphic sect ever existed, nor that Orphism ever became popular; it was too abstract, too full of symbolism. On the other See also:hand, the genuine Orphics, a fraternity of religious ascetics, found unscrupulous imitators and impostors, who preyed upon the credulous and ignorant. Such were the Orpheotelestae or Metragyrtae, wandering priests who went See also:round the See also:country with an See also:ass carrying the sacred properties (See also:Aristophanes, Frogs, 159) and a bundle of sacred books. They promised an easy expiation for crimes to both living and dead on See also:payment of a See also:fee, undertook to punish the enemies of their clients, and held out to them the prospect of perpetual banqueting and drinking-bouts in See also:Paradise. A large number of writings in the See also:tone of the Orphic religion were ascribed to Orpheus. They dealt with such subjects as the origin of the gods, the creation of the world, the ritual of purification and See also:initiation, and oracular responses. These poems were recited at rhapsodic contests together with those of Homer and Hesiod, and Orphic See also:hymns were used in the Eleusinian mysteries.' The best-known name in connexion with them is that of See also:Onomacritus (q.v.), who, in the time of the Peisistratidae, made a collection (including forgeries of his own) of Orphic songs and legends. In later times Orphic theology engaged the See also:attention of Greek philosophers—Eudemus the Peripatetic, See also:Chrysippus the Stoic, and See also:Proclus the Neoplatonist, but it was an especially favourite study of the grammarians of See also:Alexandria, where it became so intermixed with See also:Egyptian elements that Orpheus came to be looked upon as the founder of See also:mysticism. The " rhapsodic theogony " in particular exercised great See also:influence on See also:Neoplatonism. The Orphic literature (of which only fragments remain) was See also:united in a corpus, called ra 'Opd,ucd, the chief poem in which was ,) roi, 'Opc4Ews OeoXoyla. It also included a collection of Orphic hymns, liturgic songs, See also:practical See also:treatises, and poems on various subjects. The so-called Orphic Poems, still extant, are of much later date, probably belonging to the 4th century AM.; they consist of: (I) an Argonautica, glorifying the deeds of Orpheus on the " Argo,' (2) a didactic poem on the magic See also:powers of stones, called Lithica, (3) eighty-seven hymns on various divinities and personified forces of nature. Some of these hymns are probably earlier (1st and 2nd centuries). The Orphic poems also played an important See also:part in the controversies between See also:Christian and See also:pagan writers in the 3rd and 4th centuries after See also:Christ; pagan writers quoted them to show the real meaning of the multitude of gods, while Christians retorted by reference to the obscene and disgraceful See also:fictions by which the former degraded their gods.
There is an edition of the Orphic Fragments and of the poems by E. See also:Abel (1885). The Argonautica has been edited separately by J. W. See also:Schneider (1803), the Lithica by T. See also:Tyrwhitt (1791), and there is an See also:English See also:translation of the Hymns by T. See also: Knapp, fiber Orpheusdarstellungen (See also:Tubingen, 1895); F. X. Kraus, Realencyklopadie des christlichen Alterthums, ii. (1886) ; J. A. Martigny, Dictionnaire des antiquites chretiennes (1889); A. Heussner, See also:Die altchristlichen Orpheusdarstellungen (See also:Leipzig, 1893) ; and the articles in See also:Roscher's and Daremberg and Saglio's Lexicons. The story of Orpheus, as was to be expected of a legend told both by See also:Ovid and See also:Boetius, retained its popularity throughout the See also:middle ages and was transformed into the likeness of a See also:northern See also:fairy See also:tale. In English See also:medieval literature it appears in three some-what different versions: See also:Sir Orpheo, a " See also:lay of See also:Brittany " printed from the Harleian MS. in J. See also:Ritson's Ancient English Metrical Romances, vol. ii. (18o2); Orpheo and Heurodis from the Auchinleck MS. in See also:David See also:Laing's Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of See also:Scotland (new ed., 1885); and Kyng Orfew from the Ashmolean MS. in J.O. Halliwel!s Illustrations of Fairy See also:Mythology (See also:Shakespeare See also:Soc., 1842). The poems show traces of See also:French influence. (J. H. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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