Clowning around

[wintermoth]

I am so fucking happy and proud of Gooseworx. Not only was that a fulfilling and satisfying finale, but holy shit you made it to theaters. People clapped at the end. People were screaming and hollering and laughing and crying and threatening eachother to keep the episode secret or else.

An excellent ending to an excellent story. You did amazing, Goose.

[nondelphic]

the feminine urge to abandon the novel and start a newer, hotter, less emotionally demanding novel

[themoon1sblue]

My Orpheus

Orpheus,

Why won't you look at me?

Why won't you turn around?

Is my love really not enough?

Orpheus,

Can you hear my pleading?

I can still feel your heart beating

In the places your fingertips grazed my skin

Will you soothe my ache or be the one to finish the kill?

Orpheus,

If you do turn your gaze,

What does it mean?

Will I finally be free from this hell?

Will you take my hand,

and save me from the cold?

Or turn my heart to stone,

and shatter my soul?

Oh, Orpheus,

Sing for me

Let me get lost in your melody

Turn your head

Don't you want to walk hand in hand?

Am I not worthy of your time?

If you love me, why won't you turn around?

Oh, Orpheus,

Please look into my eyes

See my despair for your love

Who cares what the outcome was

Maybe this time we'll beat the odds

My dear Orpheus,

Come close, your voice is my last hope

Answer my prayers, connect the dots

I'm truly yours, so just please turn around

Walk with me, side by side

So I don't feel like you're leaving me behind

My dear Orpheus,

I'm screaming your name,

What can you see, what's keeping you away?

My soul holds your shape

My heartbeat spells your name

Is that not why you came to get me back?

Oh, my dear Orpheus,

I'll keep going step by step

Without a clue when the road is going to end

Maybe one day you'll turn your head

Or maybe we'll never meet again

My dearest, my Orpheus,

Please stop and think

About us and what's ahead

Please turn around

And say the truth about us

-Theo

[animentality]

[dont-leafmealone]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Hadestown - Mitchell Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown) Characters: Eurydice (Hadestown), Orpheus (Hadestown) Additional Tags: Fix-It, Alternate Universe - Orpheus Doesn’t Turn Around (Hadestown), Mentioned Hades (Hadestown), Song: Doubt Comes In (Hadestown), no particular cast in mind for this but i gave orpheus brown eyes bc he deserves that much at least, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, brain-frying levels of sleep deprivation as i believe the kids are calling it nowadays, had to happen though, Eurydice (Hadestown) Lives Summary:

Orpheus was a poor boy, but he had a gift to give; for a shining moment, that last day of winter, the way the world could be and the way it was were one and the same.

[margarita-secreta]

"there is no universe in which orpheus and eurydice aren't eternal doomed lovers."

that one anonymous author from the medieval times: hold my goblet.

[red-the-raspberry]

You're all sleeping on Laertes, by the way

Just like Hamlet has to step into his father's shoes in a way, Laertes has to step into his absent mother's shoes to advise his sister on matters of the heart. Then this protective brother/mother role, which blends the feminine with overwhelming masculine patriarchal duties, causes him to feel he has failed to protect his sister from abuse and suicide. He's nominally avenging his father when he fights Hamlet, but he's also punishing himself for failing Ophelia. The survivor's guilt must be immense.

Also it's crazy how he gets to leave while Hamlet and Ophelia are essentially trapped in their childhood home indefinitely...

[whenshe-picksup-a-pen]

I remember reading about Orpheus and Eurydice when i was little.

The version i read spent some paragraphs describing the souls Orpheus encountered as he descended into hell. How those vicious souls, ghosts banished down into the underground were mocking him the way the Fates, or the "hound dog" did in Wait For Me. But Orpheus listened.

He listened as he continued walking. He listened to the many different tragic stories that brought all those souls down here. All those tragedies since the beginning of time. And as he went deeper into hell, the souls began to tell him how they were hopeful, like him, once. How they were deceived, betrayed, and left broken and alone. Up above in the mortal world or down here in the underground. At first attempts to scare him away, but then gradually turned into confiding, seeing how he just wouldn't give up.

All the while Orpheus listened, and he turned them into songs.

So for me, the moment Orpheus finally "sees how the world is" doesn't just happen all of a sudden during Papers or Nothing Changes. Or If It's True. Or Doubt Comes In.

It happened the moment he embarked on his journey.

Instead of how the world "could be" -- the "truth of this world"-- the pain of others, the stories he listened to and sang about, were bearable simply because Eurydice was still "ahead of him" for him to hold on to.

And that's only half the journey.

Once they're on their trial, once they're trying to get their way out, I imagine souls throughout hadestown dead silence.

They have nothing left to say now. No stories left to tell, no tears left to cry anymore. This man has done something no soul has ever done before and they're all just watching him from the side, in the dark.

Watching him as Orpheus battles alone in silence, fighting against every single song and story that is now stuck in his mind, of failure, and lies, and betrayal. As his every step reminds him the first time he learned about these tragedies.

And unlike the journey down, he doesn't know where Eurydice is. He isn't sure anymore. All he sees, is the way it is.

Until he turns around.

#look i just wanted to talk about this version i read before where there were whiny ghosts along the way and orphy was just nice enough to give them music therapy

#i didn't know it would turn into whatever this is when i started typing

#anyway dude was heavily traumatized as we probably could all agree

#and an orpheus who wouldn't turn around is an orpheus who wouldn't go after her in the first place

#and that eurydic is heart broken but she knows she is loved 💔

[summer-williams]

Can someone please give me all the lore they know on Greek mythology or Orpheus and Eurydice please and thank you. It’s currently my obsession and I don’t know where to start.

[demonhen]

Oooh boy, my hyperfixation comes handy!!

Let's start!

First thing I should mention is that there is no single source entirely about the myth of Orpheus (and Eurydice). Like most myth, we have to search through many accounts.

The first accounts of Orpheus don't mention Eurydice at all. All we know about him is that he's venerated as the greatest musician that ever lived, able to charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and divert the course of rivers just with his music.

These are the core element of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. But before we venture, I wanna take a second to talk about Orpheus role as an epic hero.

Euripides and Plato both refer to the story of his descent to recover a woman but it's not clear that it's his wife and they do not mention her name.

Plato is the first to give a singular version of the story of his descent into Hades: the gods (he writes in the Symposium) showed the poet only a ghost of his wife*, because he had not the courage to die for her, like Alcestis, but forced the law of nature to enter Hades alive, and, as a further punishment for his cowardice, he met his death at the hands of women.

---

He plays a very important role in The Argonautica, a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius.

Jason, the MC, is told by Chiron that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens (the same Sirens encountered by Odysseus). When the argonauts came across them, Orpheus played music that was louder and more beautiful, drowning out the Sirens' bewitching songs (most accounts also mention that after being defeated by Orpheus, the sirens actually killed themselves, not withstanding being defeated by a man).

---

Going back to his descent in the Underworld, the concept of him failing to retrieve the woman he loved because he turned around, dooming her, is actually first mentioned by a *Latin* poet, Vergil (it's unclear if it's his invention or it just was never mentioned bf), who is also the first to give Eurydice her name.

Vergil introduces also the figure of Aristeus, a beekeeper that violently pursues Eurydice chasing her until she was bit by a serpent.

The central part of the myth plays out the same in most versions: Orpheus, grief-struck, decides to go to the Underworld, plays music so beautiful that it moves EVERYONE in the Underworld (monster and damned souls alike) and it softens the hearts of Hades and Persephone, who agree to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he has to walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. Orpheus turns around and he loses Eurydice a second time, this time for good.

The reason why Orpheus turns around is a whole thing itself that it could take days to talk about. I'll summarize.

• In some versions, like in Vergil's, when the upper world comes into Orpheus's view, he thinks his journey is over. In this moment, he's so ecstatic and so eager to finally see Eurydice that he unthinkingly turns around an instant too soon, either just before he reaches the threshold or when he's already crossed it but Eurydice is still a few steps behind him.

• In other versions, concern for Eurydice makes him look back: he hears her stumble, and he finally can't resist turning around to help her.

•Ovid, in the Metamorphosis, writes "Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. [...] Dying a second time, now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?)." So, it was a moment of passion-fueled carelessness to make him turn.

•Then there are the versions where his flaw is his lack of faith, because he looks back out of doubt that Eurydice is really. Hadestown draws from this.

And this is it about Orpheus and Eurydice

But wait, you say! What was that all about Orpheus dying at the hands of women? I'm glad you asked! The women in this story are traditionally recognise as the Maenads followers of Dionysus.

According to a summary of Aeschylus's lost play Bassarids, Orpheus, towards the end of his life, disdained the worship of all gods except Apollo. One early morning he went to mount Pangaionto salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to shreds by Maenads for not honoring Dionysus, his previous patron.

But Latin poets give a different version.

Vergil says that, after losing his wife for good, Orpheus rejected the company of women, out of faithfulness to her memory ("no love, no marriage"). The Ciconian women (followers of Dionysus), enraged by his rejection, tore him apart limb from limb.

Ovid, in the Metamorphosis, goes even further. Not only Orpheus rejects the love of women, but goes to Thrace and encourages homosexual love ("he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his affection to young boys and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering this side of manhood").

Same outcome: the Ciconian women throw sticks and stones at him as he played, but his music was so beautiful even the rocks and branches refuse to hit him. Enraged, the women (say it with me) tore him to pieces.

Ovid also ends his recount on a very interesting note with Orpheus so defending to the underworld and finally reuniting with Eurydice: "he finds Eurydice and holds her in a passionate embrace. Now the two of them walk together, side by side: sometimes he follows her, sometimes he leads her, and now Orpheus turns fearlessly toward his Eurydice"

This is all I know about the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but there is a whole world of modern retelling (not the booktok ones) that are fascinating to explore.

[nunforcia]

Orpheus simply deciding to journey to the underworld for Eurydice made the tiles of fate slip into place ending his trial before it had even begun due to his act of deciding not to look forward in life and instead looking back, towards Eurydice.

[victusinveritas]

[coolmaycroft]

Heavenly Delusion, ch. 60

[kanny-cant-live-meow]

okay I love Hadestown and the love story between Orpheus and Eurydice (even if it has a sad ending) but ngl Eurydice has SO MUCH MORE patience in the beginning than I do cuz fym Orpheus asks to marry her before introducing himself? no "hi, how are you?" just straight to "come home with me" LIKE NO?? gods forbid a man say that shit to me, he'd be in the ground. instead of rightfully turning him down, she actually hears him out and Im glad she did but girlllllll that could not be me💀

[girldante]

speaking of brunetto latini i'd love to share the way i was introduced to his homosexuality through this iconic italian gay history website. happy pride king <3

[lewislarbalestier-moved]

happy republic day to all the italian tumblrinas gnc

[emme-la-butte]

Amo troppo l'Italia che ha sofferto e lottato, penato e fronteggiato e il dolore la fame il coraggio e la giustizia si susseguono ciclicamente in un pezzo di terra che è bellissimo e anche dannatissimo ma siamo ancora una Repubblica, una Repubblica democratica antifascista che va sempre difesa e va sempre celebrata 🇮🇹

Buona festa della Repubblica a tutti 🤍

[melissa-titanium]

DUDE we barely got like any fucking peridots from rebecca sugar nd it makes me so sad . ☹️