But then, Orpheus made a terrible, tragic mistake. So overjoyed and excited to have rescued his wife, he turned back, just for a moment, to look at her beautiful face. It was too soon. Carelessly, Orpheus broke the one condition of the agreement and Eurydice, in an instant, went poof!

With his singing and playing he charmed the ferryman Charon and the dog Cerberus, guardians of the River Styx. His music and grief so moved Hades, king of the underworld, that Orpheus was allowed to take Eurydice with him back to the world of life and light.

He turns around because he has reached the end and thinks they’ve made it.

Orpheus, singer, musician and poet, carrying a lyre on his shoulder, had recently married Eurydice, but on the day of their wedding, ‘in the very bloom of her life’, she was bitten by a viper and died of its venom. Distraught with grief, Orpheus descended into the underworld determined to restore her to mortality.

In short, Eurydice kills herself because she is heartbroken over the death of her son. When Creon finds out, he has Antigone arrested and sentences her to death. Haemon, Creon’s son, is in love with and betrothed to Antigone.

The story is about a Orpheus the son of Apollo and Eurydice a nymph. They fell in love to each other. After that they got married. He took up his lyre and played and sang with such deep sorrow that the gods were moved, and they begged him to reverse what had been done which is to save his beloved love.

The purpose in writing the story of Orpheus is probably to deliver the message of love that chose to withstand and defy the challenge of death and redemption. The story also aims to entertain and inform the readers of the value of acceptance.

As the other answers have stated, the moral of this story is the importance of trust. Orpheus is tested in this story. He has every reason not to trust because he lost his wife, Eurydice, to a snake bite on their wedding night. That would shake anyone’s faith in love, in fate, or in the gods.

Originally Answered: Why did orpheus look back to see if eurydice was following him? Because the entire thing is based only on a promise with Hades. Orpheus didn’t get to interact much with Eurydice or convince himself she was real.

Orpheus looked behind himself to see if Eurydice was following him because he could not contain his excitement for her. Explanation: Here is the sequence of events that happened before this incident: On his way out Orpheus could not control himself and violated the condition given by Hades.

Orpheus is a legendary musician. During his life, he lost his wife and muse Eurydice and ventured to the Underworld to plea for her return. Although he was ultimately unable to bring her back to life, he charmed Hades with his music such that after his death, Hades employed Orpheus as his court musician.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for instance, flatly states that Orpheus looked back simply because he was “[a]fraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her.” Virgil’s Georgics elaborates on this: “sudden madness seized the incautious lover, one to be forgiven, if the spirits knew how to forgive: he stopped, and forgetful.

Why did the gods give a condition to Orpheus regarding his bride before they return to Earth? Hades wanted to know if Orpheus trusted him. He wanted to test Orpheus. He never really wanted to give up Eurydice’s soul.

The presence of the lyre in ​L’Orfeo​ is often carried by the character Orpheus for the entirety of the opera; he is never seen without it. The lyre he carries is Apollo’s lyre, which holds the power to charm objects and living beings with a strum of the strings.

Orpheus was a musician, poet and prophet in Greek mythology. His parents were the king of Thrace Oeagrus and the muse Calliope. It was the god Apollo who taught Orpheus how to play the lyre when he was an adolescent. According to a source, his music had the ability to charm the animals and make the trees dance.