The Greek Mythology behind Hadestown -- Hadestown (1/8, episode 30).

In ancient Rome, there is a poet.  What we now call western civilization is just beginning to find its first roots take hold … there’s an academy, and Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are writing books that will be read for centuries.  In fact, books that we still read and talk and think about today.  And in this line, just around the time of Jesus, is our poet.

His star is rising, then crossed.  The Encyclopedia Brittanica documents his rise: “No single work of literature has done more to transmit the riches of the Greek imagination to posterity. By 8 ce the Metamorphoses was complete, if not yet formally published”

The poet doesn’t yet know the impact that his work will have; he can only know that his work is just now complete.  It’s fate, like that of the heroes he’s writing about, is not to get to a final destination unscathed.  Brittanica continues: “and it was at that moment, when Ovid seemed securely placed on a pinnacle of successful achievement, that he was banished to Tomis by the emperor.”

The work would have to be finished in exile.  And the travails would not end there; the emperor would ban his books from public libraries.  He would write his own autobiography…the title would be “sorrow.”

But history has a way of turning a censor’s work to folly; you can try to ban books but you can’t stop ideas, and when a good book finds it’s audience that genie won’t go back in the bottle.  I’ll keep reading from the Brittanica entry; our poet’s “chief appeal stems from the humanity of his writing: its gaiety, its sympathy, its exuberance, its pictorial and sensuous quality…It is those things that have recommended him, down the ages, to the troubadours and the poets of courtly love, to Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Ezra Pound.”  

Really, Ezra Pound?  Ew…yuck.  That dude was a racist monster who sucked in all the ways our poet did not.

The poet’s name was Ovid, the 12th and 13th centuries are called the “age of Ovid,” and he flourished again in the Renaissance.

The book he wrote was called Metamorpheses, and in there is the tale of Orpheus and Eurdyce.  Among those who would not share the Emperor’s scorn for the work was Anais Mitchell, who would pick up the tale in 2006 and turn it into a Broadway smash hit a decade later.

And today, we’ll learn where that story came from.

Transcript

In ancient Rome there is a poet. What we now call Western civilization is just beginning to find its first write to take hold. There's an Academy and Plato's Socrates and Aristotle are writing books that will be read 4 centuries. In fact, books that we still read and talk and think about today. And in this line of thinkers and just around the time of Jesus. Is our pullet. His star is rising and then cross the Encyclopedia Britannica documents his rise quote no single work of literature has done more to transmit the riches of the Greek imagination to posterity by 8 CE than Metamorphoses were complete, if not yet formally published. Equal. The poet doesn't yet know the impact that his work will have. He can only know that his work is just now coming to an end. It's fate, like that of the heroes, that he's writing about is not going to get a final destination unscathed. Britannica continues. Quote and it was at that moment when Ovid seemed securely placed on the pinnacle. Of a successful achievement that he was banished to Thomas by the emperor and quote the work would have to be finished at exile and his travails would not end there. The emperor would ban the books from the public libraries, he'd write his own autobiography, and the title would be sorrow. But history has a way of turning a sensors work into folly. You can try to ban books, but you can't stop ideas. And when a good book finds its audience, that Genie will not go back into the bottle. I'm going to keep reading from the Encyclopedia Britannica entry our poets quote. Chief appeal stems from the humanity of his writing. It's gaiety, it's sympathy, it's exuberance, it's pictorial and sensuous quality. It is those things that have recommended him down the ages too. The troubadours and the poets of courtly love from Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Wolfgang Van Goats and Ezra Pound and quote, uh. Really Ezra # yuck. That dude was a racist monster who sucked in all the ways that our poet did not. You probably cut it by now, but the poets name was Owen, and in the 12th. In 13th centuries, it was called the age of Ovid. And then he flourished again in the Renaissance. So much for your tempted censorship. Or the book you wrote was called Metamorphoses, and in there is the tale of Orpheus and Euridice among those who would not share the emperor's scorn for his work was Aneus Mitchell, who would pick up the tail in 2006 and turn it into a Broadway smash hit a decade later. And today we'll learn. Where that story came from.
I'm John Breske and you were listening to theater history and mysteries where I take a musical theater production and go into a deep dive on the questions that it raises and the answers that it provides. I hope that this approach will give a deeper understanding about the lessons that the musical has for theater and for life. And I will never miss an opportunity to pursue any mystery bizarre coincidence, improbable event, or supernatural suggestion along the way. Because in the words of Dirk. Gently. It is all connected.
OK, this is.
The part where I make my ongoing plea for your help in promoting this show, I really can't do it without you. The show is doing pretty well. It's getting some traction that people will find it and you know, have that spot in the brain. That this is. Scratching are really taking to the show and. I appreciate that. And all your support, but every podcaster says this because it is true that if you can give us a rating, if you could post a good episode onto your own social media, if you could just tell your friends about things you like about the show or things that you have discovered on this show and point them in our direction, that would really make a huge difference. Plan for this moment is to get Hades town in eight different parts. That is what the next 8 episodes are all going to be about. Hades town. This is the first post mega musical that we're going to be talking about. Everything else is kind of entered the cannon like the great musicals of all time. The cats that runs for decades and whatnot, and Hades town is the first contemporary show that we're going to do. I'm excited to get to it and there is more than enough to talk about for at least those next 8 episodes. Now I have promised and that I will always go into the ghost story and explain the explorer, the strange and the mysterious well. In this show, everybody literally goes to hell and comes back, so most of the mysteries are historical. The ghost stories just kind of right there front and center. If you want to know where is the ghost story in Haiti's town? Well, they go to hell. That's pretty much the ghost story there. But there's still plenty to know about and plenty of important choices that are going to tell us about. Theater and life. Now this show is of course about a Greek myth, and to get that myth to a contemporary audience and convert it into a musical, Mitchell had to make some important theatrical choices and to fully understand the depth of those decisions, we are going to need to fully understand where those original myths came from. You got another origins of the story. And so the two things that we're going to tackle today. Are Greek and Roman civilization and Greek and Roman myths, or at least the myths of those characters that are involved in Haiti's? That's where today the next show is going to be a comparison of the two original versions of the story, which came from a poet named Virgil, and from our friend COVID. And just as a precursor little tease. If things come, Ovid and Virgil had very different takes on the Orpheus story, and those are going to present Aneus Williams with some important choices to make. She of course handled them well, but let's figure out what those choices are before we race to deciding how she got figuring out how she got it right. OK, so to understand the Greek myths, you got to know a little bit about Greek history. And so to get us from Greece to Rome, we're going to rely on Neil Middleton. He's from the University of Wales, Trinity St. David, and he's got an MA in ancient history. And his count goes like this. There is a Bronze Age. It's from 3000 to 1100. See and of course the numbers go backwards. There's at 3000 as long ago 1100 is sooner. There are various civilizations during that time, but that's not really our concern. The big turning point is that about 1200 BC is the Trojan War. Homer, of course, is going to write about these, but not for. Countries. These are the first two real narratives that appear in the Canada Western Civilization. And interestingly, I say this as a. Former debate coach. Both of them start with debates and one of them starts with two. The Odyssey starts first, with the debate amongst the gods and secondly with the debate amongst the people of Athens who are deciding what to do. About the Trojan War, OK? Anyway, this is not about the Trojan War. Homer is going to write. Not that that that happens at 1200 BC. This is followed by a period called the Greek Dark Ages. So this is when things aren't really going well and then a bunch of Greek city states are rise. There's intellectual and cultural growth you've heard of some of these cities, cities. They are Athens and Sparta and Corinth and Thebes. They are just coming into their own. But they're not really a unified. Thing and then around 775 to 750, the first Olympic Games are held and this is when Homer writes the Iliad and the Odyssey. So notice he's now like 500 years away from the Trojan Horse Trojan War that was 1200 BC, and he's riding and it's about 7:50 BC, so. Some time has passed between the events of the Trojan War and what Homer has to say. Welcome. Athens then has democracy breakout around 500 BC. The Athenian democracy, the first big experiment in democracy happens, or at least the first big one that we got a bunch of books about. This is followed by the classical period. So that's 480 to about 323. And in this time Greek drama starts to flourish. They build the Parthenon. This is when soccer he's played an Aristotle era around. In fact, Plato founds the first Academy in 387 BCE, so there is now such a thing as a university, which means there's now such a thing as a place where people are writing books, dealing scholarship, thinking about things, and making that a full time endeavor. In 336-2323 BC. So that's a decent chunk of time and right after the founding of the Greek Academy, Alexander the Great conquers Persia and Egypt and beyond there is now a Greek Empire, Greek cultural and military dominance are now at their peak. Let's call this the. Alexandrian era, that will become important later when we compare. And notice it's about a century after the Trojan War happened. It's about 400 years after Homer started writing his poems, and it's about 50 years after the founding of the first university. Anyway, it's the Alexander the Great period, and Greek culture is flourishing. There's a Greek empire in 323. Alexander dies. The empire splits their wars. Greek culture continues to spread, though Egypt, Persia and India are now reading the Greek stuff. That is, of course, mostly coming out of the Greek Academy and coming from their scholars and poets. And then in 146, Rome conquers Greece with the destruction of Corinth. So, so far it's been mostly Greek culture, but now Rome has conquered Greece. So we moved from Greek as the dominant language to Latin as the dominant language. But we have moved from Greece. Grecian or rule kind of in its apex under Alexander the Great and it is now being ruled by Rome. OK. So that's 146 BC. About a century later, this guy named Julius Caesar's come around. You probably heard of him. He's in around in the late 50s BC. He's of course, a successful military leader, but also a dictator. So he's famously assassinated, also famously by his own close friends. That follows a period of chaos. So what do you do after your dictator has been assassinated? Well, in 31 BC, there's a big naval flight between a guy named Octavian and Marc Anthony and Cleopatra. So Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, our allies, they had this big naval flight with Octavian Octavian winds. And he takes on the title of Augustus so he is Emperor Augustus. He crowns himself, he's crowned the emperor. Now, that doesn't happen immediately. There's like this political game. So the the war has happened with Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. But Gustus eventually wins the hearts and minds of the soldiers. That's important, but also the Senate, and he becomes the Emperor in 27 BC. He's now Emperor Augustus. He rules for about 40 ish years. 27 BCE to 14 CE, but his rule starts about 200 years. That is called Pax Romana. Or kind of 200 years of relative peace where there is a single empire. It is the Roman Empire. Kind of fun to notice that that almost exactly overlaps the time Jesus is doing his thing, so he dies in 14 CE and Jesus of course starts becoming a big deal around 3032 C. But what is going to happen is that there's the rule of Alexander the Great, the Alexandrian era. Then there's the Augustan era. That's when the Rome has asserted its control and there's a Roman Empire that's go. Went on and all that happens just before Jesus comes along and that's when the story that eventually will become Haiti's town gets written anyway. In 31 BCE that that rule extends until about 3:30 common era. Constantine moves the capital from Rome to Byzantium and he renames it Constantinople and that sets up that they might be Giants song. You know, they would just have to wait a mere 1700 years before the recording technology would get good enough that they could do their thing. But so let's say there's that Pax Romana period and then extends till about 3:30. In the common era. And then once Rome gets moved to Constantinople or the the seat of the empire gets moved Constantinople, we can see that things are shifting that gets us into the start of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, that's not terribly relevant or 80s down story, but it's kind of fun to think about Simon duets, who has an MBA from Lynn University, takes us through the Roman Empire. The Christian Church consolidates under Constantine around 400 CE. The Holy Roman Empire consolidated under Charlemagne and about 800 Ish East. So that's the 9th century, and that continues until about 1806. Picks. That is, when the Hapsburgs in the 1700s got kicked out of France, they got established Prussia and it's Alesia. It's barely hanging on when Napoleon crushes them in 1800, and it's all over. And then World War One eliminates the entire idea. But importantly for our purposes, Jesus Christ Superstar. Of course it takes place right after Emperor Augustus. The Adam and Eve story become prominent under the Holy Roman Empire, and so there's a sort of using of different Greek mythology so that we will discover that when Persephone and your rice do some stuff, it's kind of a shout out to Christian thoughts. But those are becoming kind of fused as the logical successor. The Roman Empire. That that gets us to the entire that's, you know, like our little 10 minute power tour of Greek history. But it goes from the Trojan War is about 1300 BC. Then we've got the founding, the Academy about 387. Then we have Alexander the Great, who's almost immediately after the Academy, they fall. Rome and the Emperor Augustus takes over about 30 BC, and then there's 200 years of Roman rule that eventually deteriorates into the Holy Roman Empire. That is the history of Greece and that's going to help us locate when these various events happen. And it's become really important. We start talking about the difference between vergil's version of the Orpheus story and obits. OK, that gets story. Second main theme of the day. Greek mythology. Oh, man. Is there a lot. Of Greek mythology. There's a ton of authors, and then it just gets really complicated and they're Cronos to Zeus to something. Man, I I it. It's a little bit beyond me. There's a lot of good sources out there if you want to get deeper into it than you do. But I am going to focus on the four main characters that are in Hades Town. And before I get going, I'll just say there are multiple versions of everything. So everything that I'm going to say, there's probably another print version out there, I'll give you 1. You can find others, but these are the ones that I think are going to play out in our 80s, down narrative. OK, so let's start with this. At the time of the Eurydice and Orpheus tale, the world has been divided into 3 main parts. According to the mythology, there's been an insurrection against the Titans and they're now three gods who are brothers, and they divide everything up. Zeus gets the sky, Poseidon gets the sea and Hades gets the. Underworld and that's where we are at the start of the Orpheus and Eurydice. The narrative. So let's start with the first of those characters and maybe the least interesting hates. Who is hades? Well, he's one of the three brothers who's now ruling everything he is. The God of. The dead, but also the God of riches, and he rules the underworld. So. Let's think you know, some psychologists could certainly read something into the God of the dead. Also being the God of the riches. But that's what Hades is in charge of. And as we will learn later, he's married to percent. Money. But then marriage comes about by way of abduction, so there's not too much more we need to know about haitis other than he's a God. He's behaving like sort of a toxic male, and he's in charge of riches and death. Per Stephanie, that is our second character. Much more interesting. So Demeter. I've also heard that pronounced pronounced demeterio. We're going to go. Demeter is the goddess of grain and seasons and harvest. She is like a sister to Zeus, although again the chronology is a little weird, but they also have kids together. Do Zeus and Demeter and one of them is Persephone. It's like a Habsburg family tree, Zeus and Demeter and Hades are all brothers and sisters, but Zeus and Demeter, brother and sister have a daughter together named Persephone. And then. Hades abducts and Mary's Persephone, who I guess is his niece anyway. Uh. Let's not get too hung up on the ancient Greek mythological family trees and their sexual morality. That will be something we need to get back to and for reasons that will become apparent very quickly. But for Stephanie is the daughter of Demeter, and Demeter is definitely the goddess of grain. In seasons and the harvest. Hades decides that he's going to abduct and marry Persephone, and we will get into a little bit more on that later. But in the aftermath of that, Demeter gets really mad about that and she appeals to Zeus because Persephone is abducted and is not happy about this marriage. And so Demeter goes to Zeus and says you got to fix this. Man Zeus comes up with a compromise that is Persephone is going to return to the surface, but she has eaten from the underworld. Maybe pomegranate seeds. So she's going to spend as the compromise 6 months on Earth and then six months in the underworld. And that explains the season. Hesiod and Homer would write about her, and about this event I'm going to read from Wikipedia, which is on. You know like. The He's the Homer of our day, so. This this quote. Gives a pretty good summary of the story and everything that's going on.
Quote.
Hades, God of the Underworld, had snatched a screaming Persephone to make her his wife. With the permission of Zeus, the girl's father, Demeter, was then filled with anger, and so the seasons halted and all everything ceased their growth and began to die. Faced with the extinction of all life on Earth, Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to the underworld. Creeper Stephanie, back to her mother hates agreed to release her if she had eaten nothing while in his room, but Persephone had eaten a small number of. Seeds this bound here to Hades in the underworld for certain months of every year. Most likely the dry Mediterranean summer where plant life is threatened by drought. Despite the popular belief that it is autumn or winter, there are several variations on this basic myth. The earliest account, the Homeric hem to Demeter, relates that Persephone is secretly slipped up. Pomegranate seed by Hades in an obits version per Stephanie secretly eats the pomegranate seeds. Thinking this too, deceived hates. But she was discovered and made to say and quote. And there you have the story in short form Wikipedia. Yeah, version and God bless Wikipedia. You know, I was so opposed to it when it came out, but now that we have ChatGPT, steam rolling, everything intellectual, my at least Wikipedia is written by humans. And honestly, I like that. That was a pretty good shortish summary of what's going on. Anyway. It's no good for Persephone and. It is the origin story for the different seasons. Now in Ancient Greece, there was also a cult dedicated to both Persephone and Eurydice, and again from our friend Wikipedia quote the Eleusinian Mysteries and a mystery here is like a bunch of secret rights that you have to perform to get into the cult. We're initiations held every year. The cult of Demity, Demeter and Persephone. Based on the Pahler Nic sanctuary of Elysius ESL EU SIS in Ancient Greece, they are considered the most famous of the secret religious rights of ancient Greece and quote they also had a women's only festival. As part of these Eleusinian mysteries, it was the original ladies night. It was a. You know, back and alien get together. Drink it up, dance around a lot, have a bunch of fun, maybe a little licentious behavior, but it was women only. And interestingly, Persephone may also be thought of as the poppy goddess now. I'm only saying this because I'm into the connections. I'm not sure I'm going to explore this more, although I hope I hope we can get around to doing that. Poppy got us the only poppy goddess that I know of. Is Glenda the good? Who in with the Wizard of Oz? Of course, you know, Dorothy's getting stuck in the poppies and she falls asleep with all of her crew. But along shows Glenda the good makes it snow, and that gets that gets Dorothy out of the poppies. Poppy goddess. Is that connected to the Wizard of Oz? I'm going. I'm going to look into that if I find something, I'll get. Thank. You. OK, now for one thing. And because it is not in the musical, I'm going to mention this in the Greek version. Persephone is abducted and maybe raped by Hades. Now I'm going to turn it over to Homer as is translated by Gregory Nicky with a couple of websites in here. But it goes this way. Where Stephanie is frolicking in the field. And quote she. Persephone was having a good time along with the daughters of Okeanos, who are wearing their girdles. Slung low, she was picking flowers, roses, crocuses and beautiful violets up and down the soft Meadow. Iris blossoms too. She picked and Hyacinth and Narcissus, which had grown as a lurer for the flower faced. Girl by Gaia, the earth all according to the plans of Zeus. She Gaia was doing this as a favor for the one who receives many guests, 80s. All right. Breaking from my quite a little bit similar to that Hades is the name for one who receives many guests and has many names. We are going back to our Homer now. It the Narcissus was a wonderful thing in its splendor. To look at, it gives a sense of who they are to the immortal gods as well as the mortal humans it has. 100 heads growing from the root up. It's sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies above, and the earth below smiled back in all its radiance. So to the churning mass of the salty sea she Persephone was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands to take hold of the pretty. Thing and the Earth full of roads leading every which way, open up under her. And it happened on the plane of Nisa. Alright. I'm breaking from the quote again. So far that's just fun. For Stephanie is frolicking and she's not just kind of like running around the field. She is totally taken with the. Earth and the Earth itself, Gaia. Has gone out of its way at the request of Hades, to make it a pleasant day, and it sure is. And Persephone's having fun. It's about to take a dark turn. Back to our quote. There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge. He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses, the son of Cronos, the one known by many names. He seized her against her will and put her on his golden chariot and drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice called upon her father, Zeus, the son of Cronos, the highest and the best, but not one of the immortal ones, or of mortal human of human mortals, heard her voice. End Quote. OK, so that's a bad day for Persephone. She is the daughter of Demeter. Hades has done something like you got gave it to almost trick Persephone to come out. Enjoy nature. And then he abducted her. She is not down with it. It is against her will. And she is screaming. And the fact that nobody responds to her means that Zeus has to later intervene, which is how we get to the season. So let's just. Pause and say, what do we know about Persephone? While Persephone Haitis do rule the underworld and they do do it together in ancient Greek mythology, but in Homer it starts with a violent abduction and Homer is not alone. And then I'm just quoting Homer because it's Homer now. I have seen memes. It's a imagine writing the first and still read. Narrative epic novel of all time and still being only the second most culturally relevant Homer in modern America. Shout out to you, Mr. Simpson. But I'm quoting Homer, cause the guys Homer. And so there you have it. This ancient story, which comes from the mouth of Homer or from the pen, I guess of Homer and I will also say I am aware that some people believe that Homer himself might be a myth and doesn't exist, but let's just say there are poems tribute to Homer. That's one of them. It's been translated. And in that story. The the marriage of Persephone in Hades does not start well. That is not referenced very much in the musical and we'll get back to why that might be important in future episodes. OK, so we got Hades got to the underworld, we got Persephone, who is the daughter of Demeter and a deity who's in charge of nature, Euridice. Is the daughter of Persephone and she is a nymph. That makes her a nature deity. She's sort of the personification of nature, and she's a deity, but she is mortal so she can die. So kind of quasi divine. She, as a nymph by some sources, she is the daughter of Apollo, and that would make it gross, because if Orpheus is also a son of Apollo, which is again hinged in some sources but not others, that would make them brother and sister. So more hamburger going on, which we all again not get too bogged down in this episode other than to note there's a lot of brothers and sisters. Nieces and uncles that are hooking up in ancient Greek mythology. Now, in many tellings. She gets married to Orpheus while she is dancing in a field, and in some she is pursued by a guy named Aristeus. He's the son of Zeus and he's a guy who is into beekeeping. Alright, so Orpheus is the son of Zeus. Aristeus is also a son of Zeus and they are. Both pursuing irritancy. Aristeas is into beekeeping and he's chasing after Eurydice, who is either married to Orpheus or not quite married to Orpheus, but anyway. During during while either while she's frolicking and pastor by herself or while she's being pursued by Aristeus, she steps on a snake. Yeah. So and the snake definitely kills her. So there's not a ton on your Etsy that is back story prior to her meeting meeting Orpheus other than the fact that she is a nymph and she was definitely killed by stepping on a snake. And that might be important because that is not how she dies in the story. Alright, so we've gotten through three of our main characters in the story so far. That only leaves your boy Orpheus, the hero of this story. Now he is definitely got a lot of stuff going on. He is from race, which is way north in Greece, so it's all the way up in the top of Greece. Modern day it's it's kind of part of it's in. His mother is Calliope. Calliope is amuse, and his dad is either a Thracian king, but maybe Apollo, depending on who you read. But either way, he's got music in his blood. Your mom is amuse. You got music. And in some tellings, Apollo trains him in music, and he's given a golden liar. That's like a 13th century. BC Fender Stratocaster it is the guitar of the gods and his music so. Just. His mother is amuse. He's probably trained by Apollo, who is also a God of music. So he's got music that is built into his blood and he gets all the music, jeans and a golden wired play on. So his music is not just good, his music is really, really good. He's like Bob Dylan and The Beatles and Tupac Shakur all rolled into one. His music. Moves humans. It moves animals. It moves. Nature like literally animals. Stop what they're doing to listen to. And play rocks. Roll over to here with The Rolling Stones. He makes the stones roll to come to hear him and listen to him play. And of course it makes humans cry and it it stops arguments it it does a bunch of other things. He is the original rock star. He's the guitar man. Night after night he doesn't right. He can make you laugh. He can make you cry. He can drag you down. He can get you high. He's the jazz man who testifies and makes a faithless man believe.
Ah.
I am not going to apologize for my depression into 70s era lyrics anyway, Orpheus, the first thing about him is he's this fantastic musician. He is a musician, gifted by the gods. So that is his dominant feature. But he does have three things that he does that. Report #1 he travels with Jason and the Argonauts. Like seriously. He travels with Jason and the Argonauts and this happens just before the Trojan War. So Jason and the Argonauts in the in the ancient stories, they go on their quest and then they come back and then the Trojan War starts. So just before the Trojan War starts, which puts. Morpheus, as right around the time of the Trojan War, he is traveling with Jason now. Why does he travel well? In 300 BC, there's a writer named Apollonius Rhodius, and he wrote an epic called I'm going to pronounce this wrong argonautica, which I think is the tale of the Argonauts. Now Orpheus is actually the first Argonaut that Jason picks. Like the, you know, like you're lining up for dodgeball. And it's like, OK. We're going to take with us on the Grand Quest, says Jason. And he starts with Orpheus and Orpheus does 2 important thing. Whenever these big ego warriors start fighting with each other, Orpheus starts playing his music and then they all stop and they grab their beers and they start hugging each other and they start crying and they're like, I love you, man. This song is so great. Orpheus's music can stop these big egomaniacal. Brutal guys from fighting with each other, which is what Jason needs to make his trip a success. And just as importantly, he's got to get past the sirens. The sirens are going to trick people with their beautiful song, so he needs a musician that is good enough that he can trick the sirens and it turns out that Orpheus, of course successfully does that, which is why, Jason. Makes it back home and was able to make one of the truly great claymation movies on the basis of that myth. All right, #1 Orpheus travels with the Argonauts. Not in or even referenced in the musical. But man, is that some back story. #2 he of course has a relationship with your edits, and this is the core of the musical. Now he wants to get married. Your editor wants to marry him and they want to make it a big deal. So he kind of goes out of his way to have this huge ceremony. There are some implications and some of the stories, this is an indication of his. Ego that this dude he's, you know, he's a rock star in all ways, including great big ego. And so when he gets married, he wants a bunch of people there and he wants to make it a big deal. So he invite. This person, named Heyman, who is the God of marriage, and he asks Simon, hey, you're the God. Of marriage, will you? Bless my wedding to Iridaceae. Hymen decides that he can't do it, which is and forboding event if the if the God of marriage won't bless your marriage, how come that that's no good? Umm. Well, it turns out Heyman is right, because of course, as we've mentioned, you were to see, then gets bitten by. A snake and dies. But and this is where the story heats up, Orpheus follows her to the underworld, and by all accounts he gets this deal with Hades, where it's like you can lead your to see out, but you can't hold her hand and you can't look back. And if you look back then the deal's off. And she has to go to hell forever. He almost makes it. But the very last minute Orpheus turns around looks at her and she is now dead forever.
Or.
His death then follows. It's much later, some say months, some say seven months, some say 7 years, some say three years. I've seen many sources on this, but he does not leave live to a ripe old age. His Euridice is taken from him and he wanders all around. For a while, just totally bummed out. And then his death happens when he. Is definitely ripped apart by a mob of angry women like torn to pieces and decapitated. So let's go back to our faithful friend Wikipedia and and listen to this. To this description quote. So he he's torn apart and he's decapitated, quote his head still singing mournful songs floated along with his layer. Down the river Hebrus into the sea. After which the winds and the waves carry them to the island of Lesvos, at the city of Methymna. There, the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honor, near Antisa. There his Oracle prophesied until it was silenced by Apollo in addition. To the people of Lezbos. Greeks from Ionia and Aitolia consulted the Oracle, and his reputation spread as far as Babylon Orpheus's lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses and was placed among the stars and. Now, none of that's in the musical, but boy, isn't that a lot of stuff he has ripped apart his head, floats to the aisle of lesboes it gets buried. There's also a story in there where a snakes gonna bite him, but Apollo intercedes and turns the snake into stone. But the head is buried nonetheless. On the aisle of less both, there's an altar built above it. It becomes a. Oracle and prophecies. And then there's a religion based on that, which we'll get to later and then eventually the head. His liar is carried into. And placed among the stars. Alright, so that's what happens with Orpheus and Eurydice. Now that third thing which I mentioned briefly there is that there was then a massive cult based on them again. From Wikipedia quote. Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called Orphic Mysteries. He was credited and breaking out of the quote here. But. Remember, a mystery is a series of ancient rites that have to be performed. So if you're looking to the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter and Eurydice. Those are secret rights that get performed by. This cult of. Followers that are designed to get them into the cult get them higher knowledge and closer to the goddess. In the case of urgency and Persephone into the goddesses of fertility, and for the Orphic mysteries is to get you closer to this God who's got. Prophetic power. OK, I'm going back to the quote. He's the founder of the Orphic Mystery. Quote He was credited with the composition of a number of works, among which are a number of now lost theogenes, including the Theogony commented upon in that their venue, papyrus, as well as extant works such as the Orphic Hems and Orphic Argonautica, and Lithic, A shrines containing purported relics. Of Orpheus were regarded as or. Goals End Quote. So Orpheus dyes his head is buried and there's an entire Orphic cult that that follows him for centuries. He's a quasi religious quasi messianic figure. All right, that. That's the thing I think I said there was. There are three things. Right. OK. There's actually a fourth that we will again. I have to get back to and again it's going to get a little, let's just say gross by 21st century standards #4 he is a pederast. In fact, he is called the first pederast. This does not happen in all the stories. He has not become a pederast. But in at least one very important version of the story, he is definitely a pederast, and the story goes, he is way too sad about Eurydice dying to take up with a serious female lover. So instead he has sex with boys and that makes it cool when he's going to reunite with Iridesse after she dies. Doesn't sound like there's a lot to unpack there. My my yes, there is. We will get to that in bulk later in the next episode. For now, let's just put a. In it, if you saw hadestown, you probably know Orpheus was a good musician. That was his defining characteristic. Did you know that he went with Jason and the Argonauts? Did you know that a religion was founded on the basis of his head being buried on the island of Lesvos, Lezbos. That has some interesting etymology, right? Like. In sometime in case I'm getting too nerdy, yes. Yes, the word lesbian in our contemporary use does come for the hell of Lesboes not coincidence merely. That's where his head buried. Probably not. And he also becomes the first Peter asked all of that part of the Orpheus myth in Greek legend, but not part of Haiti's town. There remains the question of was he a real guy? Well, you know, it's kind of hard to tell. The ancient Greeks talk about everybody is if they were a real guy, including Zeus. They believed that the gods were ill and the minotaurs and the Cyclops and all those. They thought they were real. Why not? Aristotle, interestingly, did not believe he was a real guy, but does but but it's clear that everybody else pretty much did. If he's a real guy, he'll live generations before Homer, so there aren't, like, great birth records from back then. It is notable that Homer writes about him. Plato did write about him in the faders, which is of course, faders being the Greek God of motorcycle maintenance. I hope you got that reference, but. Plato's account is way less flattering, so that just about everybody, including the person who identified him as a Peter, asks, thinks that Orvis is pretty cool. Or at least he's a very tragic but very talented musician, not Plato. Plato, just kind of thought that he sucked. But it is interesting. Both Plato and Aristotle are writing about him, and at least at the time of the first Greek. Academy, he's just kind of considered a historical figure. OK, time for the recap. Here's the quick review. These are the parts of the tail that are part of almost every version of the story and that you will probably find that existed in Greek mythology. Persephone is always the daughter of Demeter and is responsible for the Earth's fertility, the seasons. Come and go because Persephone has to ping pong back and forth between the planet Earth and hair. In all versions of the story, as Persephone is forcefully abducted by Hades, Zeus intervenes on behalf of Demeter and she has to spend 6 months in Haiti since six months on Earth as part of the deal. And that explains the seasons. In all versions, Orpheus has divine mystical power. He falls in love with the Euridice and she dies. Buy a snake bite and then goes to Hades. Orpheus then follows her into Hell, plays a song that convinces hates to give him a chance, and Hades makes a deal. It's a test. It's not a trick, it's a test. You can leave and you can take your to see it with you as long as you don't look back, but in all versions the dude does look back. You read as he dies and he wanders around for a long while for some period of time, being really sad and playing music. Everybody loves that music. It makes everything sad, including rocks and the trees and animals and humans. But definitely everyone's sad and the songs are. Great. He meets his end by being torn apart by an angry mob of women. His head ends up singing, continues to sing after his death, and it ends up on. The Isle of. ****** it becomes an Oracle and religion is founded. Done him. That is sort of the common Canon of the Orpheus story. Those are things that come out of Greek mythology in pretty much a in a stock way. Now just to finish our review, let's get to the parts that are in that story but are not in Haiti's.
Town.
Eurydice is bitten by a snake. Of course, it is crucial to the plot of Hades town that she gets the hell in a. Different way she. Makes a deal with Hades, where she agrees to go there because she's stricken with poverty. That is definitely not part of. The original Greek tale. Persephone is abducted now. There is definitely some reference to tension between Persephone and Hades, but the fact that it started with an abduction and maybe a rape as part of their relationship, that that is definitely downplayed in the musical Orpheus becomes a Peter asked after you originally dies. That's not in the musical, Orpheus is torn about. By women, it's not there. He becomes basis for religious called. In fact, there's nothing in the musical about Orpheus after he looks back in the musical. That is the end of the story. And the last thing I'll say is that we can also safely say that he's the most rounded character in the story. He's got the most back story. He's the hero, and the actions of everybody else kind of center around him. OK, so this is our quick review of Greek history and Greek mythology. ***** Mitchell, when she was writing the show, knew that part of what she had to do, and she actually wrote a book in 2020 where she explains how she came with lyrics to the song and they'll changes along the way. But part of. What the challenge of remaking any meth, and certainly one that Mitchell was. Pricing was, if you're going to tell a story about Greek mythology, you have to establish the rules of the ancient Greek world and you have to identify who the players are like. You can't just say Persephone and imagine that everybody is going to know Persephone is you have to at least give some part of the back story to to lock that down. So Mitchell walks into this array of source material and she's got a bunch of creative choices to make. In the end, she makes a bunch of choices that will express her own person, her own personality own concern. They will express contemporary issues in a powerful way that obviously resonated with audiences. I have said in prior episodes. Not everybody loves Andrew Lloyd Webber. That's true. Everybody loves Anais Mitchell. You can find people that will take shots at some choices that they made. But but she's got a clear dedication to her. Draft a clear dedication to trying to make this story work some heartbreak along the way. Getting the show to the stage, but.
Uh.
The important thing now is we are now at the point that Mitchell was at when she walked into the store. I've got all this Greek mythology. What am I going to do with it to make it relevant to my contemporary world and tell the story that I want to tell? This is what Mitchell has to do. This is the point we are at, but we are not yet. At the point where we're going to walk the same path that Mitchell did before, we get to an S Mitchell, we are going to have to review the original poets. What's the original story of Orpheus, you ask? Well, that depends on whether you ask Virgil or whether or not. You ask Ovid, and we are going to ask both of them in our next episode of Theater History and Mysteries.

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