He entered Tartarus, the place of the dead, at the nearest point, a secret cave in the mountains. Orpheus walked through a cold mist until he came to the River Styx. He saw a horde of ghosts waiting there to be ferried across. But he could not find Eurydice. The ferry came back and put out its plank. The ghosts went on board, each one reaching under his tongue for the penny to pay the fare. But the ferryman, huge and swarthy and scowling, stopped Orpheus when he tried to embark.
“Stand off!” he cried. “Only the dead go here.”
Orpheus touched his lyre and began to sing about streams running in the sunlight, and how good the river smells in the morning when you are young, and about the sound of oars dipping.
The old ferryman felt himself carried back to his youth — to the time before he had been taken by Hades and put to work on the black river. He was so lost in memory that the oar fell from his hand. He stood dazed, tears streaming down his face, and Orpheus took up the oar and rowed across.
The ghosts filed off the ferry and through the gates of death. Orpheus followed them until he heard a hideous growling. An enormous dog with three heads, each one uglier than the next, was stalking toward him, slavering and snarling. It was the savage three-headed dog, Cerberus, who guarded the gates.
Orpheus unslung his lyre and played a hunting song. In it could be heard the faint far yapping of happy young hounds finding a fresh trail — dogs with one graceful head in the middle where it should be. He sang of dogs that are free to run through the light and shade of the forest chasing stags and wolves, not forced to stand forever before dark gates barking at ghosts.
Cerberus lay down and closed his six eyes. He went to sleep and dreamed of the days when he had been a real dog, before he had been captured and changed into a monster and trained as a watchdog for the dead. Orpheus stepped over him, and went through the gates.
He walked through the Flowery Fields singing and playing. The ghosts there twittered with glee. Then he came to the Place of Torment, where sinners are specially punished. He saw the ghost of a wicked king named Sisyphus who was forced to spend eternity trying to roll a huge stone up a hill. Each time, just as Sisyphus reached the top of the hill, the stone rolled back, and he had to start pushing it up the hill again. But when Sisyphus heard Orpheus singing, he stopped pushing the stone. And the stone itself, poised on the side of the hill, listened and did not fall back.
Orpheus saw the ghost of another wicked king, Tantalus, who was tormented by an awful thirst. He stood waist-deep in a pure cool stream of water, but every time he stooped to drink, the water shrank away from his lips. That was his punishment; always to thirst and never to drink. Now, as Orpheus played, Tantalus listened and stopped ducking his head at the water. The music quenched his thirst.
Orpheus passed through the Place of Torment to the Judgment Place. When the three great judges of the dead heard his music, they fell to dreaming about the time when they had been young princes. They remembered the land battles and the sea battles they had fought, the beautiful maidens they had known, and the flashing swords they had used. They remembered all the days gone by. They sat there listening to the music, their eyes blinded with tears, forgetting to pass judgment.
But Hades, king of the underworld, lord of the dead, knew that the work of his kingdom was being neglected. He waited sternly on his throne as Orpheus approached.
“No more cheap minstrel tricks!” he cried. “I am a god. My rages are not to be calmed nor my laws broken. No one comes to Tartarus without being sent for. No one has before, and no one will again when the story is told of the torments I have invented for you.”
Orpheus touched his lyre, and sang a song that made Hades remember a green field and a grove of trees and a slender girl painting flowers. The light about her head was of that special clearness that the gods saw when the world had just begun.
Orpheus sang of how pleasing that girl looked as she played with the flowers. And how the birds overhead gossiped about this, and the moles underground too, until the word reached down to gloomy Tartarus, where Hades heard and went up to see for himself. Orpheus sang of death’s king seeing the girl for the first time in a great wash of early sunlight, and how he felt when he saw that stalk-slender girl in her tunic and green shoes among the flowers. Orpheus sang of the love that Hades felt when he put his mighty arm about the girl’s waist, and drank her tears, and knew that at last he had found his bride.
That girl, Persephone, was queen now, and she sat at Hades’ side. She began to cry. Hades looked at her, and she leaned forward and whispered to him. The king then turned to Orpheus. He did not weep, but no one had ever seen his eyes so brilliant.
“Your song has moved my queen,” he said. “Speak. What is it you wish?”
“My wife.”
“What have we to do with your wife?”
“She is here. She was brought here today. Her name is Eurydice. I wish to take her back with me.”
“It is impossible,” said Hades. “Whoever comes here does not return.”
“Not so, great Hades,” said Orpheus. “The gods can do what is impossible. Give me my wife again, oh king, for I will not leave without her — not for all the torments on earth, or below.”
Orpheus touched his lyre again. The Furies, hearing the music, flew in on their hooked wings, their brass claws tinkling like bells. They poised in the air above the throne. The terrible hags cooed like doves, saying, “Just this once, Hades. Let him have her. Let her go.”
Hades stood up then, black-caped and towering. He looked down at Orpheus and said, “I leave the poetry contests and loud celebrations to my nephew Apollo. But I, yes, even I of such gloomy habit, can be touched by music like yours. Especially when I hear my dread servants plead your cause. The Furies haven’t had a good word to say for anyone since the beginning of time.
“Hear me then, Orpheus. You may have your wife. She will be given into your care, and you will lead her out of Tartarus to the upper world. But if during your journey you look back just once — then my mercy is withdrawn and Eurydice will be taken from you again — and forever. Go!”
Orpheus bowed once to Hades, once to Persephone, and lifting his head, smiled a half-smile at the hovering Furies. Then he turned and walked away. Hades gestured and as Orpheus walked through the fields of Tartarus, Eurydice fell into step behind him. He did not see her. He thought she was there, he was sure she was there. He thought he could hear her footfall, but the black grass was thick. He could not be sure. He thought he recognized her breathing — that faint sipping of breath he had heard so many nights near his ear. But the air was full of the howls of the tormented, and he could not be sure.
But Hades had given his word. Orpheus had to believe. And so he pictured the girl behind him, following as he led. He walked steadily through the Flowery Fields toward the brass gates. The gates opened. The three-headed dog still slept in the middle of the road. Orpheus stepped over him. Surely he could hear her now, walking behind him. But he could not turn around to see, and he could not be sure because of the cry of vultures which hung in the air above the River Styx. Then on the gangplank of the ferry, he heard a footfall behind him. Surely… why, oh why, did she step so lightly? He had always loved her lightness, but now he wished she was more heavy-footed.
Orpheus went to the bow of the ferry and gazed ahead. He clenched his teeth, and tensed his neck until it became a thick halter of muscle so he could not turn his head. When he left the ferry on the other side of the river, he climbed toward the cave. The air was full of the roaring of the great waterfall that fell chasm-deep toward the River Styx. He could not hear her footsteps, and he could not hear her breathing. But he kept a picture of her in his mind, seeing her face grow more and more vivid with excitement as she neared the upper world. Finally Orpheus saw a blade of light cutting the gloom. He knew it was the sun falling through the narrow cave. And he knew that he had brought his wife back to earth.
But had he? How did he know she was there? Hades might h
ave tricked him after all. No one can call the gods to judgment. Who can accuse them if they lie? And he was dealing with cruel Hades, who had murdered a great doctor for pulling a patient back from death. Hades, whose demon mind had designed the landscape of Tartarus, the bolts of those gates, and a savage three-headed dog. Could such a mind be turned to mercy by a few notes of music, a few tears? Would Hades, who made the water always shrink from the thirst of Tantalus, and who rolled the great stone back on Sisyphus, allow a girl to return to her husband just because the husband had asked? Had Eurydice been following him through the Flowery Fields, through the paths of Tartarus, through the gates, over the river? Had it been Eurydice or only the echo of his own longing? Had he been tricked into coming back without her? Was it all for nothing? Or was she there?
Swiftly Orpheus turned and looked back. She was there. Eurydice was there. He reached out to take her hand and draw her into the light. But her hand turned to smoke. The arm turned to smoke. Her body became mist, a spout of mist. And her face melted. The last to go was her mouth with its smile of welcome. But it too melted. The bright vapor blew it away in the fresh current of air that blew through the cave from the upper world.
Afterword
The Romans conquered ancient Greece but were conquered in turn by Greek ideas, especially by the Greek religion. The Romans simply took over the Greek gods, gave them Latin names, and worshipped them as their own. No one worships the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus today, but they live on in wonderful stories that have been told and retold for 3,000 years, stories that we call myths.
In the tales in this book, we have used the names of the gods and goddesses that are most often heard or are easiest to pronounce. Sometimes we use the Greek name, sometimes the Latin, or Roman, name.
Here is a list of the most important gods and goddesses with their Greek and Latin names, and their titles.
Greek
Roman
Title
Zeus
Jupiter
King of the gods
Hera
Juno
Queen of the gods
Poseidon
Neptune
God of the sea
Hades
Pluto
God of the underworld
Apollo
Apollo
The sun god, also god of music and medicine
Artemis
Diana
Goddess of the moon
Athena
Minerva
Goddess of wisdom
Aphrodite
Venus
Goddess of love and beauty
Eros
Cupid
God of love
Hermes
Mercury
The messenger god
Hephaestus
Vulcan
God of fire and metal
Ares
Mars
God of war
Persephone
Proserpine
Queen of the underworld
Demeter
Ceres
Goddess of agriculture
Hestia
Vesta
Goddess of hearth and home
Dionysus
Bacchus
The wine god
About the Author
Bernard Evslin (1922–1993) was a bestselling and award-winning author known for his works on Greek and other cultural mythologies. The New York Times called him “one of the most widely published authors of classical mythology in the world.” He was born in New Rochelle, New York, and attended Rutgers University. After several years working as a playwright, screenwriter, and documentary producer, he began publishing novels and short stories in the late1960s. During his long career, Evslin published more than seventy books—over thirty of which were for young adults. His bestseller Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths has been translated into ten different languages and has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. He won the National Education Association Award in 1961, and in 1986 his book Hercules received the Washington Irving Children’s Book Choice Award. Evslin died in Kauai, Hawaii, at the age of seventy-seven.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright© 1976 by Bernard Evslin
Cover design by Olivera, Omar & Andrea Worthington
ISBN: 978-1-4976-6705-1
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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