EURYDICE (oak nymph, wife of Orpheus)

Her life was cut short when she failed to see a water-snake at her feet, and the poison from its bite ended her days prematurely.^3,1 The Dryads and mountains wailed for her fate, and the women of Thrace, the heights of Rhodope and Pangaea, and the land of Rhesus mourned her.^1,4 She was lost to the realm of the dead, and some accounts state she died before her husband.^5,6

Orpheus identified her as his wife in his plea to the underworld rulers, asking them to restore her to life.^1,2,3 The judges of the underworld wept for her, and the gods themselves wept, an act they had never performed before.⁴ Persephone ruled that Eurydice could follow Orpheus back to the upper air, and the lord of death allowed her return.^4,1 The goddesses of fate renewed her exhausted thread of life, and she was required to follow behind her husband during the ascent.^7,4

She moved slowly because of a wound she had sustained.⁸ Orpheus turned around to look at her, and she was lost when he did so.^1,5 A crash like thunder was heard in the meres of hell when the bond broke, and she fell back and died again.^1,7 The fates recalled her, and dark sleep closed her eyes as she was borne away by night.⁹ She dissolved like smoke and was sundered from Orpheus's sight, floating death-cold on the Stygian barge.⁹ The boatman of Hell refused to let her pass the watery bar a second time.⁹

Orpheus sang of her on the shore during day and night, and he wept for seven months by the Strymon river.^1,9 Ciconian women tore him limb from limb during Bacchanalian rites, and his severed head drifted in the Hebrus stream while still calling her name.⁹ In another account, Orpheus found Eurydice in the afterlife and embraced her, walking together in the blessed fields where he could look back at her safely.¹⁰ She resides in the fields of the blessed after her death, and her soul was believed to follow her husband to the underworld.^5,10 Eurydice is to be honored with a slain calf as a victim.¹¹