Eurydice

Eurydice was the wife of the musician Orpheus in Greek mythology. She died of a snakebite soon after their marriage, and Orpheus went down to the Underworld to bring her back; he lost her again when he looked back at her before they reached the daylight. Ancient writers do not agree on who her parents were, and no surviving source names her mother.

Who Was Eurydice?

Eurydice is a nymph or a young bride in the sources, the wife of Orpheus, the Thracian singer whose music moved stones and trees (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.2). Sources that call her a nymph do not name her father or her mother, and the ancient texts give her no parents, so the question of who her mother was has no ancient answer. Orpheus himself is a son of Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope (Library 1.3.2).

Euridice's Death

The poets tell her death in two ways. In Virgil’s Georgics, Eurydice was fleeing headlong along a river from Aristaeus, who was pursuing her, when she failed to see a huge water-snake lying in the long grass at her feet and died (Georgics 4.457–459). In Ovid, the god Hymen attended the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice but brought no happy omen, and the torch smoked and would not burn; soon afterwards, as the bride walked through the grass with a crowd of Naiads, she was bitten in the ankle by a snake and died (Metamorphoses 10.1–10). Apollodorus says only that she died, bitten by a snake (Library 1.3.2). In Virgil the Dryads and the mountains of Thrace mourned her (Georgics 4.460–463).

Orpheus at the Underworld

Orpheus mourned her first with his song above ground, and then went down to the Underworld to try the shades as well (Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.11–12). In Apollodorus, he persuaded Pluto to send her up, and the god agreed on condition that Orpheus did not turn around until he had reached his house; Orpheus disobeyed, turned and saw his wife, and she went back (Library 1.3.2). In Ovid, Hades and Persephone summoned Eurydice, who was still among the newly arrived shades and limped from her wound, and gave her to Orpheus on the condition that he must not turn his eyes back until he had left the valleys of Avernus, or the gift would be void (Metamorphoses 10.50–52). Near the upper edge of the earth, afraid she might fall behind and eager to see her, he looked back, and she slipped away at once; she did not complain, because she could only reproach him for loving her, and said a last “farewell” (Metamorphoses 10.56–63). In Virgil, Proserpina had made the law, and Orpheus was already almost in the light when sudden madness seized him and he stopped and looked back at Eurydice; she was lost, and the crash of thunder was heard three times in the Underworld (Georgics 4.485–503). In these accounts no god guides them back; the condition is set by the rulers of the Underworld.

Reunited

Orpheus lived on alone and was killed by the Thracian women who followed Bacchus, the Maenads. In Virgil, the Ciconian mothers, angry at being scorned, tore the young man apart during the night rites of Bacchus, and his head, rolling down the River Hebrus, still called out “Eurydice” (Georgics 4.516–527). In Ovid, the women of the Ciconians, dressed in the skins of wild animals and maddened by the rites of Bacchus, killed him; Ovid calls them Maenads (Metamorphoses 11.1–43). Ovid then has his shade go down to the Underworld, where he recognises the places he had seen before, finds Eurydice among the blessed in the fields of the pious, and embraces her; there the two walk side by side, and sometimes he walks in front and sometimes behind, and he may now look back at her without fear (Metamorphoses 11.61–66).

Other Figures Named Eurydice

Several other women in Greek myth bear the name. Eurydice, daughter of Lacedaemon, married Acrisius and was the mother of Danae (Apollodorus, Library 2.2.2; 3.10.3). Eurydice, the eldest daughter of Clymenus, was the wife of Nestor (Homer, Odyssey 3.452). In Sophocles’ Antigone, a third Eurydice, the wife of Creon of Thebes, kills herself with a sword at the altar when she learns of the death of her son Haemon (Antigone 1301–1305).

Eurydice Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.3.2, 2.2.2, 3.10.3; Virgil, Georgics 4.457–527; Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.1–85 and 11.1–66; Homer, Odyssey 3.452; Sophocles, Antigone 1301–1305.

See Also: Orpheus, Orpheus and Eurydice, The Underworld, Hades, Persephone, Aristaeus