The guests were arriving, the food prepared, music playing in the background.  Eurydice and I were to be married in just a few short hours.  I could hardly wait for the ceremony to be complete.  

    I paced back and forth, impatient.

    "You should try to be a little more calm."

    "Jason!" I exclaimed.  "You're here!  I didn't think you'd make it!"  

    He shrugged, plucking a nearby apple from a bowl and biting into it.  "You think I would miss your wedding?  Sit, before you wear a hole through the floor."

    "I'm just so nervous," I finally admitted, forcing myself to sit.

    "You?" he smiled.  "Really, the famous musician Orpheus, who sprung from the loins of the gods themselves and enchanted sirens innumerable, is nervous of exchanging a few vows with a wood nymph?  I don't believe it."

    In the crowd I could see my parents, Apollo and Calliope, sitting next to a young man wearing a flower garland and holding aloft a torch.  It made me smile to know they had all been able to attend.   Father was deep in conversation with a god to his right.  I realized it was Hymenaios, the god of marriage, who Father had brought to bless our marriage.  

 

    I hardly remember the ceremony; it all went by so quickly.  We said our vows with the priestess and Hymenaios standing before us.  I was grinning like a fool and Eurydice beamed back at me.  Only Hymenaio's face was dark and grim, his torch nearly flickering out in the wind.

    The festivities lasted long into the day while the sun climbed.  Father and I played lyres together while Eurydice danced.  We ate roasted lamb and drank cup after cup of wine until we were all silly from it.

    "I need to clear my head," Eurydice whispered to me between songs.  "We'll just go for a short walk through the meadow."  She left with a few of her maidens.

 

    Jason and I were boisterously telling tales of our adventures aboard the Argo when one of the nymphs came barreling through the party toward me.

    "Come quickly, Orpheus -- Eurydice has been bitten!"

    My heart collapsed at that very moment.  My dearest love, my new bride, struck by a hidden viper.

    "We came upon a shepherd," the nymph explained breathlessly.

    "Who?" I asked as we rushed toward the meadow where Eurydice lay.  There were many shepherd, but I dreaded her answer.

    "Aristaeus."  It was as I suspected -- my half brother, son of Apollo and Cyrene.  "He was overcome with desire for her and chased her along the river bank.  She fled, but never saw the snake that struck her upon the ankle.  I'm sorry."

    When we came to Eurydice her head was in the lap of one of the naiads.  I knelt next to her, taking her clammy hand in mine even as she struggled to breathe.

    I lost my heart at the moment she drew her last breath.  After that, my life held no purpose.  I played no more happy songs and spent all my days alone.  The sun held no promise.  The days no reason.

 

    I can't say what came over me and compelled me to do it, but after mourning long for Eurydice, I decided to go after her.  The Stygian realm was not difficult to find.  I descended by a cave at Cape Taenarum, in southern Peloponnesus.

    The first threshold I approached was the river Styx.  The water was dark and murky.  Just beneath the surface I could see grey shapes writhing and twisting.  Perhaps my eyes were playing tricks upon me, but I swore I could see hands reaching toward me.  I pulled my cloak closer around me.  I couldn't see much beyond the fog of the far bank. 

    I began to hear a rhythmic sound.  Smack.  Smack.  Smack.  I realized it was the sound of an oar against the water.  Through the fog, a dark figure sailed toward me, his large black oar raising and sinking.  I swallowed hard as Charon came to a stop before.  He said nothing, but stared at me with sallow eyes.

    I attempted to board the boat, but gave the water a great smack with the oars.  I took a handful of coins and offered them open-palmed to him, but he only shook his head.  Of course, he had no need for currency in the Underworld.

    I fingered my lyre and began to play a mournful tune.  I closed my eyes and lost myself in the song.  I played until my fingers began to ache.  When I stopped, Charon gestured slowly to the vacant seat next to him. He ferried me across the Styx.  Beneath the boat, the long pales hands I'd seen before hurried away as we passed.  

    

    I played for the grotesque Furies, who wept when I played.  

    I played for Sisyphus, who ceased moving his rock.  

    I played for the vultures, who stopped pecking Tityus's liver away.  

    Eventually, all the souls of the dead gathered to listen.

 

    I lost track of time.  Where I had been there for three hours or three years, I knew not.  In the Underworld, there was never any sun, so it was impossible to tell.  I know that I crossed the rest of the otherworldly rivers: Acheron, Cocytus, Lethe, and Phlegethon.  

    My only thought was to find Eurydice and take her home.  I would never let her out of my sight again.  I let myself dream about the children we'd have and the cottage that we'd grow old in.

    Before me rose up a great palace, which seemed to seem to radiate its own darkness.  I shouldered my lyre, my heart beating in my throat.  Cerberus the hellhound sat before it.  Each of his three heads moved from side to side, surveying the vast expanses.  Spirits of the dead moved past him, but none returned back the other way.

    I approached Cerberus slowly.  The middle head growled and bared his great yellow teeth.  The great beast was said to have a taste for fresh meat, but I had no desire to become his next meal.  

    I sat down before him, just out of the reach of the three great jaws.  I began to play again, another sad, mournful tune.  The great beast's six ears perked up, but he laid down, folding his paws up beneath him.  I didn't dare take my eyes off Cerberus.  One by one each head lowered to the ground.  I continued to play.  Slowly, amazingly, the beast fell asleep and I was able to tiptoe past him.

    The palace's great doors opened into an open foyer lined with marble statues.  Each one a twisted, writhing person, as though they were trying to turn away from the shadows behind them.  

    I crossed the room, each and every footstep echoing.  My heart was lodged in my throat, thundering.  At the far end of the hall, Hades and Persephone sat side by side.  Persephone was a beautiful and sad queen.  Hades was equally so, proud but also deeply sad.

    Without speaking, I began to play my lyre once again.  The lyre said more than I ever could -- was more eloquent and more truthful than I could ever hope to be.

    "I know why you have come, Orpheus," he said quietly.  "What makes you think that I should release her?  Out of all the mourning husbands in the world, why should you get your deepest desire."

    "You too fell in love once, lord," I finally said.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand reach for Persephone's, which she gave freely.  "I want only the chance to create a life with my wife.  She was taken from me before we ever had a chance."

    "She is a soul of the Underworld now.  You should find some comfort that she resides in the Elysian Fields."

    "That is comforting," I conceded.  I decided it better to appeal to his humanity.  "But we all die eventually, and her souls will again be yours, as well as mine.  What are a few more years to you?"

    Hades and Persephone said nothing for a long time.  Instead they sat in their great twin thrones holding hands.  Finally, Persephone tugged at the god's hand.  He met her large gray eyes.

    "Eurydice may return with you," Hades said finally.  My heart leapt with joy.  "But under one condition.  Eurydice must follow behind you, and you must not turn round to look at her until you both have reached the upper air."

    I eagerly agreed -- I would have agreed to anything -- and Hades summoned her.  She came limping with her wounded foot, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  I took one last look at her, turned, and began to ascend back to the world of the living.

    We continued in this way, with Eurydice following close behind me.  We did not speak.  I was afraid that if I heard her voice, I would be unable to control myself.  Instead I listened to the unrhythmic pattern of her footsteps.  We backtracked past everything I had already been through.

    I played again for Cerberus.

    I played again for the vultures.

    I played again for Sisyphu.

    I played again for the Furies.

    We crossed the Phlegethon, the Lethe, and Cocytus.   When we reached Acheron, I played again for Charon, who ferried us across.

    It seemed to be an eternity, when finally I could see the daylight seeping through the mouth of the cave.  Unable to control myself any further, I rushed to it, running headlong into the warm sunlight.

    Then turned around.

    Eurydice stopped.  Her bright face looked crestfallen.  

    "Farewell," she said.  She was gone almost before her voice reached my ears.