CLAS104 Lecture 14: 14-Orpheus

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: CLAS104
• Professor: Ronald Kroeker

Document Summary

Attributes the lyre, animals who are being tamed by him, foreign attire/clothes. Birth from one of the muses (usually calliope in charge of poetry sung with lyre) and father said to be oeagrus (river god of thracians) or apollo. Orpheus fills the role as more of a hero than a god, has lots to do with underworld. The maenads then started beating on drums and throbbing music and drowns out orpheus" lyre protective music the thyrsus then actually hit him and killed him, then ripped him limb from limb, head and lyre flowed down river. Aftermath: his head keeps singing and they both floats all the way to island of lesbos where a big snake almost eats head. Thrace is were orpheus died and maybe born his head and thrice floated down the river into the aegean sea. Orpheus might have been, historically, a religious leader and then got mixed up with apollo and dionysus: mystery religion: purification and afterlife.