Name: 【TED-Ed】The tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice - Brendan Pelsue
Uploaded: 2018-02-28T22:00:00.000Z
Duration: 4 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It was the perfect wedding,  the guests thought.

The groom was, Orpheus, the greatest of all poets and musicians.

Anyone could tell the couple  was truly and deeply in love.

Suddenly, Eurydice stumbled,  then fell to the ground.

By the time Orpheus reached her side, she was dead,

and the snake that had bitten  her was slithering away through the grass.

Orpheus was overcome with a grief  the human world could not contain,

and so he decided he would journey  to the land of the dead,

a place from which no living creature  had ever returned, to rescue his beloved.

When Orpheus reached the gates of the underworld, he began to strum his lyre.

The music was so beautiful that Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the dead,

Charon, the ferry captain who charged dead souls to cross the River Styx,

was so moved by the music that he brought Orpheus across free of charge.

When Orpheus entered the palace of Hades and Persephone,

He sang of his love for Eurydice,  and said she had been taken away too soon.

The day would come when she, like all living creatures,

dwelled in the land of the dead for all eternity,

so couldn't Hades grant her just a few more years on Earth?

In the moment after Orpheus finished,  all hell stood still.

Sisyphus no longer rolled his rock up the hill.

Tantalus did not reach for the water  he would never be allowed to drink.

Even the Furies,  the demonic goddesses of vengeance, wept.

Hades and Persephone granted Orpheus's plea, but on one condition.

As he climbed back out of the underworld,

he must not turn around to see  if Eurydice was following behind him.

If he did, she would return to the land of the dead forever.

he worried more and more  about whether Eurydice was behind him.

He heard nothing— where were her footsteps?

Finally, just before he stepped out  of the underworld

Orpheus tried to return to the underworld, but was refused entry.

Orpheus swore never to love another woman again.

Instead, he sat in a grove of trees  and sang songs of lovers.

There was Ganymede, the beautiful boy  who Zeus made drink-bearer to the gods.

There was Myrrah, who loved her father  and was punished for it,

and Pygmalion, who sculpted  his ideal woman out of ivory,

then prayed to Venus  until she came to life.

whose beautiful Adonis  was killed by a wild boar.

had allowed him to see into  the hearts of gods and people everywhere.

For some, however, poetry was not enough.

could not bear the thought that a poet  who sang so beautifully of love

Their jealousy drove them to a frenzy  and they destroyed poor Orpheus.

The birds, nature's singers,  mourned Orpheus,

as did the rivers,  who made music as they babbled.

Orpheus and Eurydice had loved each other  so deeply that when they were separated,

Orpheus had understood  the pain and joys of lovers everywhere,

and a new art form,  the love poem, was born.

While the world wept, Orpheus found peace, and his other half, in the underworld.

There, to this day, he walks with Eurydice along the banks of the River Styx.

and sometimes, he takes the lead, turning  to look back at her as often as he likes.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED-Ed】The tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice - Brendan Pelsue

journey

temptation

grief

separate