Orpheus, the son of the Tracian river god Oiagros, was thought by the Greeks to be "the father of music." When he played joyous music, people danced. When he played sad music, people wept. He married Eurydice, one of Apollo's daughters, who happened to be an oak nymph. Orpheus and Eurydice were very much in love. On their wedding day, he played such joyous music that she danced out into a meadow and was bitten by a venomous snake and died. Orpheus did nothing but play and sing mournful songs; all the nymphs and gods were so distracted from whatever gods and nymphs do that they finally persuaded him to travel to the underworld to try to bring her back. You probably know the rest of the story. If not, check in any good book of Greek myths and read it. Then get any one of the great operas based on the story and listen. My favorite is Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. If you can listen to Orpheus sing, "I have lost my Eurydice" without being moved to tears let me know.

I haven't the faintest idea why I got home from church today and started thinking about Orpheus and Eurydice. The music in church was especially good. As I crossed the plaza from the sanctuary, the handbell quartet played Christmas carols. The writing just happened. ORPHEUS AND EURIDYCE

Something I’ve always thought was very strange
that Orpheus couldn’t wait a minute before he checked
if everything he’d planned was working out.
How could he throw it all away at the last moment?
Perhaps he wasn’t even looking back at her.
Could it have been a clap of thunder caused his head to turn?

Orpheus wasn’t like the other stars of Greece,
this champion of Thrace... He didn’t like to fight.
Ah, but how he loved to play the lyre.
Savage beasts and hardest hearted men
could not resist the sounds he made...
and all the trees swayed to the songs he played.

Perhaps the fault was hers.
Eurydice knew the rules as well as he.
She could have shuffled, no rule against that,
so he’d know she followed close behind.
Perhaps she didn’t want to come away at all.
Who knows what Hades and Persephone had taught her.

Perhaps she didn’t love enough the man she followed.
They say Orpheus was no prize catch himself.
He had a few good tunes that served him well,
but all in all he couldn’t beat the system
that the gods had made to keep in line
the heroes and the nymphs and you and me.

I wonder what kind of boy he was,
when boys, especially the sons of kings
were expected to be warriors before all else.
Did he prefer music to baseball
or whatever games they played in Thrace?
How did mighty Apollo cope with a son who’d rather sing than fight?

It was Apollo himself gave Orpheus his lyre,
and he may not even have been the father of the boy.
There was someone in the woodpile, a certain Oeagrus;
and Calliope, with her own thoughts about music, wasn’t talking.
Besides she was much more interested in herself
than in anything her son could do.

But what does that have to with anything?
Euridyce and Orpheus were a special case.
He adored her more than music.
How deep his despair was when she was gone...
to drive right into Hell itself to find her.
Letting love go is very hard to do.

Things there are that simply cannot be recovered.
Wanting too much is bound to lead to loss.
It matters not at all who’s fault it is.