Classical Studies 2200 Lecture 13: Orpheus
16 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
O r p h e u s
ORIGINS
o Son of a Muse (Calliope) and Oeagrus or Apollo
o Born in Thrace
- Semi-civilized world in the North
- Beyond Greek world
o An outsider
- Cf. Dionysus
- Considered ‘strange’ because of where he is from
ORPHEUS AND THE ARGONAUTIC SAGA
o Earlier than the Odyssey
o Orpheus was a member of the crew
o A voyage undertaken by Jason to the Black Sea to fetch the Golden Fleece
o A more mysterious quest in Pindar
o Used to explain curious geography in Homer’s Odyssey
- West or East
QUOTE FROM PINDAR, PYTHIAN 4. 158-161
You have the power to appease the wrath of those in Earth. For Phrixus commands that
someone bring back his spirit (psyche), having gone to the halls of Aeetes, and to bring
back the thick-piled fleece of the ram by which he of old was saved from the sea...
o Double mission: get fleece and deal with angry dead
SHAMAN
o Derived from Tungus (people of eastern Siberia)
o Brought into the scholarly mainstream by Marcea Eliade and Karl Meuli
o A kind of “medicine man”
o Traditional figure in society
o “… A psychically unstable person who has received the call to the religious life” (E. R.
Dodds)
