Orpheus is one of those great Greek figures who stuck around long enough to get every single myth eventually attributed to him. He invented music, sort of, but he also become the figure of husbandly mourning after failing to rescue his wife Eurydice from the Underworld (on account of looking back at her before she was 100% rescued), but he’s also credited with introducing pederasty to Thrace (!!!) and was famously torn to shreds by crazed women for refusing to have heterosexual sex, also he invented Western vegetarianism and mystery rites? A rich tapestry, Orpheus’ life.
As you might imagine, paintings of Orpheus losing Eurydice back to Hades are a dime a dozen; throw a brick through any art gallery and you’re liable to hit one sooner or later. And yet! In most of them, Eurydice does not look super rescued. Let us enjoy the comical disparity between her facial expressions and the situation at hand:
babe
come on
yeah no
i mean yeah i’m coming
i just
babe we have five minutes to literally LEAVE HELL
i know
i know, i just think i see someone
the degree to which Eurydice is struggling to resist her captor’s grasp is “ehhh”
but I just got h –
I SAID WE’RE LEAVING
c’mon, baby
all you have to do is step over this last rock and we’re home
uuuughhh
babe we’ve made it so far already
we are SO CLOSE
whoops
I fell
soooorry
Yeah, hey, Terry, I just – ugh, wait a second, my husband is trying to drag me somewhere, DO YOU MIND?
babe this would be so much faster if you just walked a LITTLE bit on your own
god I wish I could but
I’m VERY dead
even just for a minute would make a big difference
like I said
I wish I could
but as I said
I’m extremely dead
so you can either carry me back to the world of the living or I guess just let me stay here with all my FRIENDS
did you even ASK if I was ready to leave yet
oh well, we gave it our best, try to love again
This is…clearly Eurydice is eye-fucking Persephone. Yes? There is zero ambiguity here. “I’ll be back in five minutes, honestly I never even loved him, babe, I will be right back. He’s an idiot.”
Another super-lesbian one? I…there is really no alternate explanation! Check out that look Queen Persephone is shooting her; this marriage is O-V-E-R.
ORPHEUS: yeah look back at it
EURYDICE: that’s not what that means
you’re not – that’s not what that phrase means
ORPHEUS: then why is everybody looking back at it
EURYDICE: there is no way I can ever escape Hell
[Images via]
Honestly this just reminds me of how my high school friends and I referred to ourselves as the Bacchae whenever we had a mutual crush on a singer or celebrity, and in retrospect that’s pretty weird!
ETA – worth noting that my high school bff went on to author the Boyfriend Candle post on Tumblr.
Congratulations on your long-time quality friends! Well done!
I am proud of that accomplishment in the weirdest, grossest ways.
Every time I’m someplace that sells those candles I look for that one. It hasn’t happened yet.
I think it’s discontinued! Which is fucking tragic, everyone knew how much publicity that post got them.
Oh, and they completely milked it without compensating my friend in any way, btw. Literally the only thing they offered her was like… a coupon. Once. Not even an actual bf candle.
omg YES. also, i bought my college bff the Boyfriend Candle for her birthday & pasted a photo of her favorite hunky dude and some casual, scene-setting, self-insert fanfic on it because i’m a Good Friend
Omg, the eye-fucking! Get it girl.
And Hades is all “…damnit, I knew it, I just knew it.”
Eurydice: Lemme dump this chump out of earshot of our dog baby we adopted together
Persephone: My titties aren’t the only thing falling for you babe
Hades: pls :c
Cerberus looks so sad!
He thinks she’s really leaving! He’s just worried.
Cerberus has separation anxiety? D’aww
Doggies have no sense of time! I bet she got the full running around Hades greeting treatment when she got back.
Also I’m pretty sure Cerberus is dachshunds in that one.
No on does Tragic Face like a dachshund. No one.
their boobs are all kinds of spilling out everywhere. it would just be rude for them to ignore each other.
A of all, I can’t get over the last one, and second of B, I’m here for all Eurydice/Persephone fanfic.
C of three (??) do we all know about the Anais Mitchell folk opera of Orpheus? It not only portrays Persephone as the mercenary owner of hell’s version of a speakeasy, but ends with her and Eurydice hanging out drinking together, so it’s pretty good.
I had never imagined Eurydice/Persephone fic, but now I am HERE FOR IT. #humblebrag #blessed
I did not know of Hadestown but I do now and oops it looks like I am not working this evening
I just was introduced to Anais Mitchell via my Spotify weekly playlist. HERE FOR THIS.
Now I know why my life felt incomplete. It’s because I was unaware of Hadestown. Thank you friend. 🙂
This was the first thing I thought of! I saw Hadestown performed live in Boston when I lived there. Swooooon. Anais Mitchell is a dream.
Hadestown is my actual favorite album that has ever existed I’m so happy someone else is saying words about it. Can we talk for a sec about how it pulls in economic justice and critiques of capitalism along with everything else that’s wonderful?
It’s really good, and I first saw Anais Mitchell opening in concert for someone else, and she sang “Why We Build The Wall” and I bought her album right then and there, which is rare stuff for opening acts, I tell you what.
Omgomgomg do you mean Hadestown??? Because I literally stumbled across the soundtrack on Spotify yesterday and it was soooooooo gooooooood auuuugggghhhh
Clicked on the link. Yes you mean Hadestown, of course you do, I was just so excited that I knew a thing. Yay us for knowing this awesome thing. Love it.
They’re doing a fully staged version in New York this spring and I’M GOING, I’m SO EXCITED!!!!!
(I have totally written Hadestown fic. No shame.)
do you know who is going to be doing it? the album cast?
since you mentioned this i have listened to the album four times. thank you for my new obsession.
(also–greg brown as hades gives me alllll the shivers, i have listened to the entire album four times but ‘hey little songbird’ and ‘why we build the wall’ at least five times each).
#4: Finally, one of those flying babies comes in handy! Persephone just flat-out grabs one up and chucks him at Orpheus.
C’mere, you–
*SQUACK?!*
Hey Orf, think fast!
{THUMP}
What the f-
AHAHAHA!!!
{sound of running feet, descending into the Underworld]
Aaaaaaahhaha at first I thought SQUACK was the sound of the flying baby hitting Orpheus in the face, now I realize it’s just the natural sound a winged infant makes when seized. Either way, I am thoroughly delighted by your soundcrafting. Soundifying? Sound effects. The affect of your sounds. Whatever. Is good. Happy.
Their Onomatopoeia-ing?
It is now seriously official- “Squak” is what putti say.
Dirtbag Persephone ftw
It’s less a “rescuing” and more a “Come, we’ll find somewhere quiet so I can play music at you. Don’t be like that. You’ll like it, I swear. I wrote some great original songs.”
“Welp, here’s Wonderwall.”
I’ve actually got “Don’t Look Back in Anger” stuck in my head because of that last picture.
Well thank you very much, now I have it stuck in my head too.
I don’t know how the Wonderwall joke is funnier every. single. time but it is.
Can you blame her though considering that Orpheus went on to frolick around with Dirtbag Jason and his Brahgonauts? This girl is doing some serious bullet dodging.
To be fair, Orpheus in #2 is less ‘rescuing’ and more ‘practising his naked star jumps’.
I was thinking he was auditioning to be one of the Jets in West Side Story.
Plus her “captor” there is Hermes, who is way cooler than Orpheus and probably doesn’t pressure her to get into all of that new-agey “immortal soul” shit (GAWD, Orpheus), so I bet there’s less capturing going on and more swooning.
I love how according to Western art, the Ancient Greeks were the most physically awkward people of all time. So many loose awkward embraces where they seem hugely tentative as to whether or not this is how they are supposed to hold another human’s body. And endless wan, dispirited looking folks limply, dare I say flaccidly, gesturing at other people.
I feel like they all move through the world with a level of physical self-assurance I associate solely with Buster Bluth.
It’s like they’re all permanently at a high-school dance.
Which is what the gods originally threatened to punish Prometheus with, but then he pleaded with them and they agreed it’d be a bit harsh.
Also they seem to have insane amounts of clothing dysfunction. I swear some of these togas are defying the laws of physics.
It’s because they were all painted by Two Monks.
“oh well, we gave it our best, try to love again”
well, the first cut is the deepest.
*applause*
no, it’s horrible, that song will be in my head for the rest of my life.
Yes, but which version? The insipid Sheryl Crow one? The Rod Stewart one? The Cat Stevens one? (Wikipedia tells me something called the Koobas also covered it. I have never heard that version but I had to share the band name.)
it’s in cat Stevens’ Tiny desk concert (as Yusuf Islam) and that’s the one I like. ETA he actually makes a joke about whether people know he wrote it, not Rod Stewart.
This is my nightmare. My first dance as a newlywed was to “Have I Told You Lately” by Van Morrison. NOT ROD STEWART. Whew! Okay, sorry to yell, but it’s a serious sore point.
And Downtown Train is a FUCKING TOM WAITS SONG NOT A ROD STEWART SONG JESUS CHRIST. (You’re not the only one who needs to yell.) (Also Jersey girl is a Tom Waits song. I mean, I love Bruce and he does a great version of it, but that’s Tom’s song, damn it.)
somehow this conjured the elfin robyn “be well…find love!” even though i *knew* it wasn’t the right song…
Superior dickblock draping in painting#2. 10/10
I appreciate the work that went into making his drapery billow suggestively.
That last Orpheus looks exactly like Jonathan Groff.
Can we talk about that bum!? It is so shapely.
I bet he’s doing the George III walk.
You’ll be back… to Hades.
I like that even Hades has noticed it in the first eyefucking one.
HADES: Very well you may try to lead her out of…hey who are you looking at…uh.
PERSEPHONE: What?
that second one
is your wife falling back into the underworld really the time for jazz hands
Off topic only a little:
The Greatest Opera EVAH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EENw_ptgGcg
That first one is GentlmanX trying to get me to actually leave a place after me declaring an hour ago that i was tired and it was time to leave.
i know, i just think i see someone
In the second one the lyre has a cartoon sadface
‘nooooo who will play wonderwall on meeee’
I appreciate the extent to which Orpheus is sure NEVER to go anywhere without his toga, while refusing to wear it in a way that covers his Shame.
Although #6 gets points for ingenuity. “How will I lose her if she’s LITERALLY TIED TO ME.”
I love that these always say “in order of” and I straight up never know if it is ascending or descending order. Or any order at all.
What is UP with so much of art only letting women do three things: sitting primly in that awful senior portrait pose, light domestic work like spinning or baby-handling, or being all boneless and floppy?
Monk #2 did the stage direction on all of them.
“So what do I do with the lady-claws?”
“Put one of those fluffy stick-things in them. Or a baby. Nobody cares, it’s all sewing.”
“ughhhhhh I don’t wanna draw a baby”
“Your flippers on that last dolphin were really good, just do that.”
In my first art history seminar I developed a theory* that Ingres had major mother issues involving him thinking her spineless, and that is why all his women look like boneless chickens. I was also taking Psyc 101 that semester.
*theory based a precisely zero biographical fact about Ingres or his parents.
I once brought a girl over to “Netflix and chill” before that was even a thing and we watched Cocteau’s Orpheus because I hoped it would impress her. It backfired as I was unable to say anything interesting, intellectual, or even sarcastic about it. I didn’t understand that movie. I no longer see that girl.
Cool story, bro
I LOVE that movie.. and The Smiths used it for the cover of “This Charming Man”. If you had nothing to say, it’s because the movie speaks for itself, haha, and personally, I would have swooned.
None of the artists seem to be able to get Orpheus’ line of sight down. In #2 he’s staring straight up into the sky (is it technically a sky when you’re in the Underworld?), in #3 he’s so not looking and he’s about to smash that lyre on the rock, and in #4 he’s legit looking nowhere near Eurydice, but rather at a random spot at the wall.
And in #4 he’s doing that weird football player “let’s make it look like I’m mid-catch” pose, which seems insensitive.
Orpheus’ lyre in #2 is way more upset about this turn of events than Euridice is.
Oh my god, the lyre! I’m dying
Best thing about the Eurydice/Persephone ones? Orpheus may be oblivious, but Hades *knows*. The first Hades has just realised and is stunned, the second is going “Oh, this again”.
First Hades: DUDE, I am RIGHT HERE. Can you just not right in front of me and all our subjects?
#6 seems to have Orpheus and Eurydice doing a three-legged race? But with four legs? I feel like this is why very little escaping is happening.
This reminds me OVERWHELMINGLY of the Carol Ann Duffy poem Eurydice:
http://thelichqueen.tumblr.com/post/11548075965/e…
‘It was an uphill schlep
from death to life
and with every step
I willed him to turn.
I was thinking of filching the poem
out of his cloak,
when inspiration finally struck.
I stopped, thrilled.
He was a yard in front.
My voice shook when I spoke –
Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece.
I’d love to hear it again…
He was smiling modestly,
when he turned,
when he turned and he looked at me.’
That’s wonderful, the whole poem.
In the second one the lyre has a cartoon sadface.
This is probably not new to anyone, but I feel like this is a good post to share this on: http://chinamieville.net/post/20675897361/4-final…
“It’s a complicated kind of cowardice with which he looks at her. “
I’m not sure why tits out is the underworld look, I mean just because you’re dead/ a goddess doesn’t mean you don’t need support!
The timing here is exquisite for me. This weekend my 8 year old and I were taking a road trip, and I played for her the audiobook of D’aulaires “Book of Greek Myths,” the one narrated by Kathleen Turner, Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, and Matthew Broderick. She went rapidly from, “Please turn that down so I can hear my DS” to “Wait, who drove the chariot of the sun? Can we listen to that one again?”
I was quite proud.
I did not know there was an audiobook!
This, more than anything else, kind of makes me want to have children. 😛
Yes! I came down here to leave this comment. Thank you for being on that first.
I did not know there was an audiobook!
This, more than anything else, kind of makes me want to have children. 😛