The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

The myth of Orpheus (spelled Orfeus, sometimes also Orfevs in Norwegian) and Eurydice (spelled Eurydike and sometimes also Evrydike in Norwegian) was known as early as 500 BC, but the best known versions are the tragedies by Vergil and Ovid, written around 10 BC. Around 300 BC, Hermesianax wrote a version in which Orpheus succeeded in getting his beloved back. Later examples aer the opera Orpheus and Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1762 and the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach from 1858.

Shortly after the lyre player Orpheus had married the beautiful Dryad (tree spirit) Eurydice, she was bit by a snake and died. In his despair, Orpheus played such sad songs that the nymphs and gods gave him advice. He went to the underworld, playing songs so sad that they made Hades, Persephone and even the furies cry. Hades allowed Eurydice to follow Orpheus to the surface on one condition: He was not to look at her before they were outside. When they were almost there, Orpheus didn't make it any longer, and he looked back, only to see Eurydice disappear back to the kingdom of Hades.

Mourning Eurydice, Orpheus rejected all other women, and only took young boys as lovers. According to the poet Phanocles (around 200 BC), Orpheus was who invented homosexuality. In disappointment at being rejected by Orpheus, Tracian women tore him to pieces, only leaving his head and his lyre intact. His soul went to the underworld, where it was reunited with Eurydice.

SOURCES:

Store norske leksikon, www.snl.no, 02.12.2020, https://snl.no/Orfeus og https://snl.no/Evrydike

Wikipedia, no.wikipedia.org, 09.10.2015, https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orfeus