Quotes About Orpheus

If more gently than Orpheus who moved even the trees you were to pluck the zither the life-blood would not return to the vain shadow . . . Harsh fate, but its burden becomes lighter to bear, since everything that attempts to turn back is impossible. (I, 24) WHERE DOES THE ETERNAL CURRENT COME FROM?

We speak in (rich) monotones. Our poetry is haunted by the music it has left behind. Orpheus shrinks to a poet when he looks back, with the impatience of reason, on a music stronger than death.

Orpheus asks his mother. She tells him the obvious: the entrance to hell is always in your own house, silly billy.

power is the by-product of understanding. So the Greeks said that Orpheus played the lyre with such sympathy that wild beasts were tamed by the hand on the strings. They did not suggest that he got this gift by setting out to be a lion tamer.

and in the homosexual phase which would follow Eurydice's death ... Orpheus sings no more, he writes.

What madness destroyed me and you, Orpheus?

Orpheus. Had the name he had taken ever suited him better? But he would be wilier than the singer whose name he had stolen. He would indeed. He would send another man into the realm of Death in the Fire-Dancer's place-and he'd make sure that he didn't come back.

Ah,yes!That...Silvertongue! Orpheus spoke the name in a disparaging tone, as if he couldn't believe that anyone really deserved it. Yes, that's what he's called. How do you know? There was no mistaking Dustfinger's surprise. The hellhound snuffled at Farid's bare toes. Orpheus shrugged. Sooner or later you get to hear of everyone who can breate life into letters on a page.

Mortimer! Orpheus produced a derisive smile, although with some difficulty. Is your head buried so deep in your wine jug that you don't know what's going on in this world of yours? He's not doing any reading now. The bookbinder prefers to play the outlaw these days - the role you created especially for him.

By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, but music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

Orpheus, with immaculately cut pleated trousers instead of a toga, was played by Jean Marais, Cocteau's young lover. The leading actress, Maria Casares, was Albert Camus's mistress.

Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories in ever done.

I couldn't resist painting Orpheus and Charon on the River Styx. There was something strangely intriguing about seeing Orpheus playing his lyre as he is being shuttled across the river.

A sudden madness came down upon the unwary lover [Orpheus]—forgivable, surely, if Death knew how to forgive.

And we clung to each other in a shelter smelling of orange peel and piss on the promenade, and shrieked with glee, like the Bacchae who dismembered Orpheus.

Hail, O Dyonisius! Hail! Winged Son of Semelé! Hail, O Hail! The stars are pale. Hidden the moonlight in the vale; Hidden the sunlight in the sea. - Orpheus.

And I think that it is certainly possible that the objective universe can be affected by the poet. I mean, you recall Orpheus made the trees and the stones dance and so forth, and this is something which is in almost all primitive cultures. I think it has some definite basis to it. I'm not sure what. It's like telekinesis, which I know very well on a pinball machine is perfectly possible.

Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept.

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as warbled to the string, Drew Iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made Hell grant what Love did seek.

Do you know that old song about Orpheus, how he played his lyre on the mountainside, and found a lion had crouched at his feet to listen? I'm no Orpheus, I know; but sometimes I see the lion's eyes. Where did it go, after the music, what became of it? The story doesn't say.

During this time he got news that a famous statue of Orpheus, enshrined in south Macedon, had started to sweat profusely. The seers, pondering the omen, decided that the new King's exploits would give the poets work.