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The Death of Orpheus
August 17, 2007 at 8:34 am by mahud
The head of Orpheus
The mournful birds, the stricken animals, the hard stones and the weeping woods, all these that often had followed your inspiring voice, bewailed your death; while trees dropped their green leaves, mourning for you, as if they tore their hair. They say sad rivers swelled with their own tears—naiads and dryads with dishevelled hair wore garments of dark color. His torn limbs were scattered in strange places. Hebrus then received his head and harp—and, wonderful! While his loved harp was floating down the stream, it mourned for him beyond my power to tell. His tongue though lifeless, uttered a mournful sound and mournfully the river’s banks replied: onward borne by the river to the sea they left their native stream and reached the shore of Lesbos at Methymna. Instantly, a furious serpent rose to attack the head of Orpheus, cast up on that foreign sand—the hair still wet with spray. Phoebus at last appeared and saved the head from that attack: before the serpent could inflict a sting, he drove it off, and hardened its wide jaws to rigid stone.
Ovid’s Metamorphoes: The Death of Orpheus (11:44-60)
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