The very wild beasts loved them, and the trees clustered about their
home as if they were watered with music. But even the gods themselves
were not always free from sorrow, and one day misfortune came upon that
harper Orpheus whom all men loved to honor.
Eurydice, his lovely wife, as she was wandering with the nymphs,
unwittingly trod upon a serpent in the grass. Surely, if Orpheus had
been with her, playing upon his lyre, no creature could have harmed
her. But Orpheus came too late. She died of the sting, and was lost to
him in the Underworld.
For days he wandered from his home, singing the story of his loss and
his despair to the helpless passers-by. His grief moved the very stones
in the wilderness, and roused a dumb distress in the hearts of savage
beasts. Even the gods on Mount Olympus gave ear, but they held no power
over the darkness of Hades.
Wherever Orpheus wandered with his lyre, no one had the will to forbid
him entrance; and at length he found unguarded that very cave that
leads to the Underworld where Pluto rules the spirits of the dead. He
went down without fear. The fire in his living heart found him a way
through the gloom of that place. He crossed the Styx, the black river
that the gods name as their most sacred oath. Charon, the harsh old
ferryman who takes the Shades across, forgot to ask of him the coin
that every soul must pay. For Orpheus sang. There in the Underworld the
song of Apollo would not have moved the poor ghosts so much.
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