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The musician Orpheus descends to Hades to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice.
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Short filmTranscript
01:00Yes.
01:11Orpheus.
01:15Orpheus, don't go!
01:18Eurydice.
01:19What did it say?
01:21Eurydice.
01:23The woman Orpheus loved.
01:26Orpheus and Eurydice.
01:29Two names that will always belong together.
01:32Two people who loved each other even beyond the shadow of death itself.
01:36Orpheus was the son of Calliope, one of the nine muses who sang to the gods on Mount Olympus.
01:58She was the muse of poetry and music, and her son became the greatest musician the world had ever known.
02:06For the sake of his music, Jason took Orpheus on the quest for the Golden Fleece.
02:11His lyre could soothe the waves themselves.
02:14His lyre?
02:14This is a lyre.
02:16The lyre of Orpheus.
02:18Huh.
02:19Orpheus had a kingdom in Thrace, in the far north of Greece, where the olive trees are bent by the wind.
02:26And when he came home from his travels, and was once again among his people, he sat upon the stones at the edge of the forest and played.
02:33It was the beginning of spring, but there had been no rain for two months.
03:03His people danced, and as their bare feet hit the stones, he would have said the stones were moving as they danced.
03:18Not just the stones.
03:19As the king played on, his music seemed to weave into the sounds of the hillside,
03:24as if the birdsong and the riverfall, the goats' bells and the wind in the grasses had been brought into being by his playing.
03:31It makes you want to move.
03:34When Orpheus played, the whole world wanted to move.
03:37It seemed that the roots of the trees would haul themselves up from the earth and dance to his rhythm.
03:48His music gave them new life, for as he played, the rain started to fall.
03:55Children tugged at their mother's arms and whispered,
03:58Persephone, Persephone, Persephone, Persephone.
04:02For while they danced, the goddess who dances in the spring came among them.
04:11His music stirred the natural world, and the earth's sound spoke to him.
04:16One day, he was walking in the wilderness beyond the farms, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees.
04:27And then there was one sound that drew him.
04:43It came from an older tree.
04:45It came from an older tree.
04:52It came from an older tree.
05:00They said,
05:03It was the wood nymph Eurydice.
05:33And his music had brought her into the world of men.
05:43I'm Orpheus, Orpheus.
05:56I have sung storms to sleep.
06:01I have made the clashing rocks move away from our ship.
06:09I have been to the end of the world and seen things more terrible, more beautiful than I
06:18thought could be.
06:26It was the silence.
06:28Is that what you hear?
06:34Orpheus.
06:41Say your name to me and I'll pick it out of the air and I'll make a tune of it and I'll
06:46give it back to you, more beautiful than you.
06:49Eurydice.
06:50Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice.
06:56That was how he led her back to his people.
06:59Walking before her in the wilderness, playing as he went, like a child with a new gift to
07:04show his parents.
07:06And as he looked back at her, she smiled for happiness.
07:10What a beautiful story.
07:12I'm afraid it isn't over yet.
07:14Sometimes the story doesn't end with two people falling in love.
07:18It starts there.
07:19So she went back into the tree?
07:21No, no, no.
07:22They were married.
07:23They lived together all that spring and summer.
07:26Eurydice loved Orpheus and he loved her as if there never had been love before they
07:31met and never would be love afterwards.
07:39Why are you looking over there?
07:43You missed the forest.
07:46No.
07:48I'm looking towards the trees.
07:54Sometimes the wind moves them and I hear noises that call me, the way you did once.
08:04Orpheus wanted to keep her away from the untrimmed trees and the ragged depths of the forest
08:09because he knew who was there.
08:11Who was?
08:13Dress, fawns, fawns, satties, creatures given up to pleasure, hairy and unpredictable.
08:19like me. Hairy, anyway. And out there in the forest of Thrace was Aristaios himself,
08:28who lopes in and out of the deepest woods. The corn was ripe, the branches were heavy
08:35with fruit, and the men and women of that country gathered in the harvest and danced
08:40a grateful dance to the goddess Demeter. But Eurydice was drawn to the wilderness.
08:49Aristaios. Who's there? Aristaios. I can see you. Hello. I'm a mess of unscratchable
09:12edge. Shake a leg. If there was a wall I could get up against, if there was a wrap, please
09:18I could rub up against and have a really good itch. Oh, I'm all itch. Can you scratch
09:23my itch? Go on, just give me, give me. Oh, yeah, that's great. Up a little, yeah. Let go.
09:27Nice, Sean. Go on. Who are you? I'm a goat. I'm a man. I'm the brother of Penn.
09:36I'm a goat. I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a brother of Penn. I'm a man. I'm a brother of Penn.
09:45Aristaios meant her no harm, but as she ran through the forest, the snake bit her heel.
09:50Eurydice. Eurydice. Satyrs understand only pleasure. Eurydice. In the face of pain,
10:01they are like children alone in the dark. I'm a goat. I'm a man. It wasn't me. It wasn't
10:07me. Just a snake. Just a snake. Eurydice. Speak to me. Eurydice. Don't leave me.
10:20But her eyes just stared past him and her mouth gaped as wide as it made.
10:26He took his wife in his arms and carried her out of the forest to where his people were
10:31still dancing. And his words chilled their hearts. Eurydice is dead. We will give her
10:42body to the woods laid out for harvest fires. And when we have done with our lament, I will
10:48break my lyre. For since she is dead, there will be no more music. Bring her back. Don't
10:59let her die. Help me. Please help me. You, you can do it. Your music can do anything,
11:05can't it? Make it bring her back. Use this to bring her back. Please, please, you must.
11:11You must help me.
11:14Zeus and the immortals, hear me. I, who have calmed the seas and made rocks move with my music,
11:24I will charm death. I will go down to Hades and bring her back. Do you hear me? I will
11:34bring her back from the arms of death himself. And so armed only with his music, Orpheus went
11:41down into the underworld. The land from which no one has ever returned.
11:47There is almost no sound in Hades. They have a dog there, don't they? They have a three-headed
11:57dog, Cerberus, if you must know. But this isn't a story about dogs. This is the story of Orpheus,
12:04who went down into Hades itself to bring back his loved one. He picked his way down towards
12:10the river Styx. The river you must cross to reach the underworld. And there below, he saw
12:16his wife, walking towards Charon, the ferryman of Hades.
12:23One oboe.
12:32Drink.
12:33Eurydice! Don't drink!
12:36This is the water of Lethe. The water that makes you forget. Everyone must drink it. It's sweet.
12:43Eurydice!
12:44Don't you feel all those painful things? Glowing. Glowing.
12:46Eurydice didn't turn as the boat drifted off through the mists. Orpheus could only wait
13:02for the ferry to return, knowing there was no other way across.
13:06One oboe. The crossing is one oboe. No oboe, no crossing.
13:20The boat, it moved.
13:21I know.
13:22The souls of the dead have no weight.
13:24You wait.
13:27Your hands, they're warm.
13:29I'm alive.
13:30Yes.
13:32Your lips, your skin.
13:35Caron.
13:39Caron.
13:43I haven't heard music.
13:44Oh, I don't know. So long.
13:51Didn't it soothe you, Asa?
13:54Huh?
13:55Reaching the far side of the river, Orpheus stumbled on through the cold marshes.
14:00With Eurydice gliding ahead of him, always just out of reach, he called to her.
14:04But as he did so, the mists rolled back before his eyes.
14:10And there in front of him was Hades, the king of the underworld, with Persephone his queen by his side.
14:21Who comes uninvited to my kingdom?
14:24I am Orpheus, king of Thrace, son of Caliope.
14:30And what does king Orpheus seek from Hades?
14:35A soul now before you in judgment.
14:38Eurydice, my wife.
14:40No soul returns from my kingdom.
14:44Love is stronger than death.
14:49Nothing is stronger than death, little musician.
14:54Fear.
15:23Fear.
15:24Fear me.
15:26I am the bald audience at the theater.
15:30The knock at the door when you least expect it.
15:34I am the one whose name must not be spoken for fear I hear it and sit next to you.
15:42I am the pain in your arm at four in the morning.
15:46The headache that will not shift.
15:48The sour taste in your mouth of everything you ever did.
15:58I am waiting, little musician.
16:01And one day I shall come for you also.
16:05Then you will see your wife once more.
16:08You will see your wife once more.
16:14But Orpheus would not give up Eurydice.
16:17He played again.
16:19This time to the queen.
16:20He will not listen.
16:21Or if he pretends to listen, he is lying.
16:33Oh, death cheats too.
16:34Each year mankind endures the winter while I stay here because he tricked me long ago.
16:48Even Zeus was powerless to change it.
16:51He'll trick you too, musician.
16:54Still Orpheus played on, but the king of the underworld was deaf to the beauty of his music.
17:00Persephone was moved by an unbearable sadness.
17:07Everything must die, Orpheus.
17:10The people we love most have to die.
17:14Even the rocks.
17:16The earth itself is eaten away by time.
17:21Everything must die, Orpheus.
17:25To live again.
17:26People think of death like absence, but absence isn't forever.
17:33Not while there is any life left at all in the world.
17:37It is only cold on the earth for six months.
17:42Death is unimpressed.
17:44Death is unimpressed.
17:54Husband.
17:56I pray to you.
17:58I am begging you.
18:00Give up this soul to Orpheus.
18:02Very well, little musician.
18:12Take your bride.
18:14Take her to the upper world.
18:17But always walk ahead of her.
18:19And do not once look back to see if she is following.
18:25For if you turn to look at her, she will be mine once more.
18:34You hear me?
18:35Imagine the love of his life behind him, and yet he must not look at her.
18:44With every step that he took, he listened.
18:47But the shades of the dead make no sound, and he could not hear her tread behind him.
18:51He walked, grim as death itself, on and on through the wastes of the underworld, towards the nine-looped river Styx.
19:00By the time he reached Charon's boat, he had started to doubt that Eurydice was behind him.
19:06Don't ask me questions. Don't see.
19:09Don't remind me of the world.
19:12I have my duty. That's enough.
19:14Eurydice, give me a sigh.
19:24Just breathe.
19:26I can't hear you.
19:31Don't look round.
19:33Oh, how he longed to. How he longed to.
19:36As he started up the steep track that leans back to the world's light, he kept his eyes on the ground.
19:41He clenched his fists hard and willed himself not to think of her.
19:46It wasn't far.
19:48Ahead of him, he could see the daylight.
19:50If only he could believe that she was behind him.
19:53That the silence of her death was not a real silence, but had been redeemed by music.
19:58He was almost at the entrance of the cave that leads to Hades, and he could hear the birds singing outside.
20:04And they walked out into the sunlight and were happy ever after.
20:06They didn't. They didn't. They didn't.
20:11It's always just when you think you have things in your grasp that you close your fingers and find they've gone.
20:16Because when we're in love, it's our hearts that guide us and betray us all the time.
20:23Orpheus could bear it no longer.
20:26He turned.
20:28And her soul fled back to Hades.
20:31He had lost Eurydice forever.
20:40Orpheus went out alone.
20:42He went back to the land of his people.
20:45And sat like a man who was dead already.
20:48And the women gathered round him.
20:52They felt his pain, but they begged him to play.
20:56For his music brought rain, made crops grow.
21:01No.
21:03More.
21:05Music.
21:09Ever.
21:18What happened?
21:19If you could have heard that sound.
21:21That hateful, ugly sound.
21:24A sound that could make women barren.
21:27Stop love before it started.
21:29On and on and on.
21:31Day after day.
21:32And the women came to him from the fields, knowing they must end this deathly noise.
21:42They circled round him and beat their tools upon the ground.
21:47They're really wild, those women.
21:49What did they do?
21:58What are they doing to him?
22:02They tore his body limb from limb.
22:13They cast its fragments onto the river.
22:17And his head floated out to sea, to the island of Lesbos.
22:21And his head still sang her name.
22:24Will always sing her name.
22:26Eurydice.
22:28And some people say that the wild women were turned into trees.
22:32Where they stood.
22:34That was the last time that trees had souls.
22:37And that from that day, there was nothing in oaks or limes or silver birch, but woody silence.
22:44But Orpheus' head spoke prophecies.
22:47And the love that he had had for Eurydice he was never forgotten.
22:51Never will be forgotten, as long as there is life.
22:54So maybe love is stronger than death.
22:58And we've got his lyre.
23:00It's here.
23:03My lyre must always play.
23:05For without music, we are nothing.
23:08We need the shapes out of nothing.
23:11Tunes out of silence.
23:13Love out of hate.
23:14Music that lasts forever.
23:15Love out of hate.
23:16Music that lasts forever.
23:17Love out of hate.
23:18Crack.
23:19Love out of hate.
23:21Rack.
23:22More Apart.
23:23Rotate.
23:25Orpheus' head.
23:28To the end.
23:30Is in the end.
23:32The end of burning.
23:34Is in the end.
23:36To the end.
23:38Transcription by CastingWords
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