greek myth storytime

so once upon a time there was this musician

he was the child of one of the Muses (demigoddesses of music/poetry/etc)

and, as musicans sometimes do, he fell in love with a woman

and then, as people who have fallen in love with musicians sometimes do, she died

and he started singing about how sad this made him

thing is, since he was, like, a quarter-divine, he was *really really good* at singing

rocks literally started crying because Orpheus’s song about being sad that Eurydice was dead was so damn sad

so one of the gods was all, dude, this is fucking everything up, everyone’s just sitting here listening to Orpheus’ blues

it was really good blues but, you know, other shit’s gotta get done, yknow?

so they showed Orpheus where the nearest entrance to the Underworld was, gave him a little advice, and said “go get your lady back, please, just stop making everyone for miles around wanna lie down and pretend it’s Seattle in the middle of the winter”

he didn’t have any money to get across the Styx but he sang about how sad he was and the ferryman was all “shit dude just stop singing, I wanna kill myself now, just, like, go away”

he just whistled a sad refrain when he got to the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld and Cerberus just sat down and whined until he passed by

and then he was in front of Hades, the god of the Underworld

maybe Persephone, Hades’ wife, was there too, I can’t remember, it’s been a while

and he sang the low-down-no-lady-sad-boy-blues for Hades for a while

and, like, Hades is a force of nature, he’s the lord of Death and all, he’s inevitable, but that buy was so good at singing that he even moved Hades

or maybe he just made Persephone sad enough to get her to take Hades aside and be all “dude you are never getting laid ever again until this boy leaves this throne room, okay”, like I said it’s been a while

so Hades calls up this sad little spirit that’s all that’s left of Eurydice, and he tells Orpheus to go back, if he can get her all the way to the surface he can keep her, but there is one thing: no matter what, he cannot look backwards until they’re both in the land of the living

and the thing is this little ghost is perfectly, completely silent

so all the way back up he is wondering, is she behind me? he can’t hear any footsteps, he asks if she’s behind him and hears nothing

and then right by the entrance he finally just can’t not any more, and he looks back

and he just sees the ghost of Eurydice looking sad and disappointed and then she fades forever

and then he goes out and sings about how sad he is for a while until one of the gods kills him and turns him into a constellation or something

:)

also I think afterwards his head got cut off and used as an oracle, greek myth is like that