ORPHEUS. The Greek hero Orpheus was revered by the Greeks as an earlier poet than Homer. They ascribed to him a wonderful power of song by which he was able to charm the wildest beasts and to move even trees and stones. When his beloved wife Eurydice died he descended to the underworld and by his power of song persuaded Persephone to allow him to carry back the beloved one to the upper world. Consent was given on condition of his not looking round, a condition which was not kept, with the result that Eurydice had to return. According to legend he met his end by being torn in pieces by the Thracian Mienads (women in a state of Bacchic ecstasy). He came to be regarded by the Greeks as a hero of civilisation who taught the Thracian the useful arts and induced them to give up cannibalism, besides being a wonderful poet and the founder of a religion. According to Reinach, " he was in reality an old totemic god of Northern Greece, whose violent death and resurrection were -the articles of faith of a mystic form of worship." In consequence of his reputation as a poet, a number of poems were attributed to him (Orphic Poems). Some of these are hymns to gods and demons. " Concerning the dates and the manner of growth of these poems volumes of erudition have been compiled. As Homer is silent about Orpheus (in spite of the posi tion which the Mythical Thracian bard acquired as the inventor of letters and magic and the father of the mysteries), it has been usual to regard the Orphic ideas as of late introduction. We may agree with Grote and
Lobeck that these ideas and the ascetic Orphic mode of life first acquired importance in Greece about the time of Epimenides, or, roughly speaking, between 620 and 500 B.C. That age certainly witnessed a curious growth of superstitious fears and of mystic ceremonies intended to mitigate spiritual terrors . . . We may suppose that the Orphic poems were collected, edited and probably interpolated, in this dark hour of Greece. ' To me,' says Lobeck, ' it appears that the verses may be referred to the age of Onomacritus, an age curious in the writings of ancient poets, and attracted by the allurements of mystic religions.' The style of the surviving fragments is sufficiently pure and epic; the strange unheard of myths are unlike those which the Alexandrian poets drew from fountains long lost. But how much in the Orphic myths is imported from Asia or Egypt, how much is the in vention of literary forgers like Onomacritus, how much should be regarded as the first guesses of the physical poet-philosophers, and how much is truly ancient popular legend recast in literary form, it is impossible with certainty to determine " (Andrew Lang). Cp. ORPHICS. See Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, 1S99; O. Seyffert. Diet.; Reinach, O.