The Song of Orpheus: Act IV

2023-10-05

In this episode, Act IV of The Song of Orpheus, we leave the kingdom of Hades for the upper airs, but there is much unfinished business still to sort out. In answer to your questions - no, Orpheus does not try a third time to bring back his beloved Eurydice. That door has closed. And yes, Virginia, it is true, Orpheus is a hot mess without the love of his life, and yet, despite his sad disarray, a cult organically develops around him and his music. Understandably, this does not sit well with some o...

In this episode, Act IV of The Song of Orpheus, we leave the kingdom of Hades for the upper airs, but there is much unfinished business still to sort out.

In answer to your questions - no, Orpheus does not try a third time to bring back his beloved Eurydice. That door has closed.

And yes, Virginia, it is true, Orpheus is a hot mess without the love of his life, and yet, despite his sad disarray, a cult organically develops around him and his music. Understandably, this does not sit well with some of the Olympian gods because it detracts from their respective cults of worship. They work a solution, or rather Dionysus enlists the unpredictable maenads of Thrace to work a solution, which has a strange sort of success.

No, Orpheus is not deified like Hercules, although his lyre does become a constellation.

And also no, there are no bootleg mixtapes of Pyramus or any other of Orpheus' sublime music. Nor any other merch for that matter lol!

And yet, despite a lack of technology and social media, his legend has endured. How can this be?

Keep puzzling this, and in the meantime, enjoy and embrace the strangeness that is the conclusion to The Song of Orpheus.

*Credit for original background music to Steve Hayden et al. for the hair raising exchanges between the fanboys in Thrace and on Lesbos.

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