The Orphic Tragedy | Echoes of the Orphic Mysteries

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Orpheus alas! The master musician, bard, and poet. Said to be the founder of Mysteries related to Dionysos (Bacchus) and Hecate. He lived in the Greek Heroic Age, receiving his lyre from Apollo, god of music.

On the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts Orpheus combats the luring songs of Sirens with his lyre and saves the ship.

When Orpheus returned to Thrace he married the love of his life, Eurydice. But on his wedding day, tragedy struck in the form of a venomous snake.

Orpheus was said to be able to move trees and summon animals with his music. And the poets of Greece and Rome looked back on him at times in the same vein as they regarded Homer and Hesiod. But much more than Orpheus’ tragedy impels the modern world to remember him.

Plato spoke of Orphic poets and a bushel of books written by Orpheus. While none of his writings survive, many have quoted or summarized his poems throughout history.

In this video, we review the sources related to the Orphic tragedy, the accounts of Orphic Mysteries, and the viability of recent discoveries (Olbia Bone Fragments, Gold Tablets, Derveni Papyrus) providing enough evidence to demonstrate that there is a lost tradition of Greek Philosophy that preceded and influenced Platonism.

The search for the severed head of Orpheus continues.

SOURCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Virgil, Georgics, (J. B. Greenough.)
Ovid, Metamorphosis (A.S. Kline translation)
Ibycus. Fragment No. 22
Pausanias, Description of Greece, (W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A.)
Apollodorus, Library, Sir James George Frazer, Ed
Boethius, the Consolation of Philosophy, (translated by H.R. JAMES)
The Derveni Papyrus, Gabor Betegh
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen (William Wilson translation).
Herodotus, The Histories, A. D. Godley, Ed.
Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism, Algis Uzdavinys
The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus, Thomas Taylor
Hütwohl, Dannu. "Plato's Orpheus: The Philosophical Appropriation of Orphic Formulae." (2016).

THUMBNAIL:
Orpheus in the Underworld, 1865, painting by Henri Regnault
(Museum: Musée d’Orsay)