0790.04OrpheusEurydice

0790.04OrpheusEurydice_Romney

OGCMA s.v. "Orpheus and Eurydice"
Classical Sources:
Plato, Symposium, 179c-e
Diodorus Siculus, Bibl., 4.25.4, 81-82
Vergil, Georgics 4.315-558
Ovid Metamorphoses 10.1-85, 11.66
Apollodorus Libr. 1.3.2
Hyginus Poet. Astron. 2.7

George Romney, "Eurydice Fleeing from Aristaeus," drawn cartoon, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, accession number 1646-4.

Image at right from the NGV website: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/40317/

Three individuals are named in Greek captions over their heads: Hermes, Eurydice, and Orpheus. (The last name is especially interesting for being written backwards, mirrored right-to-left.)

They don't need names: Hermes Psychopompos' broad-brimmed hat (petasus), Orpheus' lyre, Eurydice's tender look at her husband all belie the true identity each. The interpretation of the action, though, is more compelling.

Is Hermes gently pulling Eurydice away? Or, is Orpheus holding back Eurydice's veil at the moment of first meeting? Is Eurydice, who touches her husband's shoulder with her left hand, just now turning her right foot to follow Hermes?

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.