Orpheus : Thracian bard, referred to as “inventor of music”. The music of his lyre charmed the wild beasts, the trees, & the rocks. He married the nymph Eurydice. She met her death by a snake-bite while fleeing the advances of Aristaeus; & Orpheus, disconsolate, went to Hades in search of her. The gods of the underworld, charmed by his music, restored his wife to him, but forbade him to look at her until he reached the earth. He disobeyed, & Eurydice vanished. When Orpheus returned to Thrace, his grief led him to scorn all women. Orpheus is said to have founded Orphism or Orphic mysteries, the secret religious rites in the worship of Dionysus.
... initiates could participate. 9. Orpheus: The great Greek dramatist Aeschylus, 525-456 BC, describes Orpheus as he who "haled all things by the rapture of his voice." Vase painting shows him playing the lyre, surrounded by birds, wild . beasts or his Thracian disciples. He is pictured as a gentle spirit, tender, meditative, affectionate. According to legend, Orpheus lived and died in Thrace, sometimes... loved. One day she was mortally bitten by a snake. Heartbroken, Orpheus resolved to descend in the underworld to reclaim her. He was able to charm Persephone with his lyre and was allowed to take his wife back to Earth on the sole condition that he should not turn to look at her. They had almost reached the gates of Hades when Orpheus, overcome with anxiety lest she should not be following, looked... more exterior religion. That was also certainly true for Greece whose highly moralized Homeric gods were but very exterior aspects of its religion. Its deeper life fed itself on the mystic rites of Orpheus,9 Dionysus,10 and the Eleusinian mysteries,¹¹ all deeply rooted in antiquity and whose initiations were kept very secret. And if we do not know the fundamentals of the Orphic initiation, we do know ...
... (goddess of the earth) at the Eleusinian Mysteries. He is not described elsewhere as a judge of the dead. Page 92 Orpheus is no doubt mentioned not as a singer and poet but as the founder of Orphism. Musaeus was a bard like Orpheus, but his benefactions consisted in giving oracles and- instruction for the curing of disease. Hesiod of Ascra in Boeotia... in the art of speaking and arguing they prepared ambitious young noblemen for a successful political career. 2. Orphic Mysteries: secret rites which sprang up round the mystical figure of Orpheus, exalting the life of the next world. 3. Plato, "The Apology of Socrates", The Last Days of Socrates (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961), p. 59. 4. Plato, ibid, p. 61 Page 61 ... 43 and all those other half divinities who were upright in their earthly life, would that be an Page 87 unrewarding journey? Put it in this way: how much would one of you give to meet Orpheus 44 and Musaeus, 45 Hesiod 46 and Homer? I am willing to die ten times over if this account is true. It would be a specially interesting experience for me to join them there, to meet Palamedes 47 ...
... Tammuz and the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice illustrate this type. In the Babylonian myth, Ishtar descends into Aralu, or Hades, demands entrance to 'the land whence there is no return' and after a series of adventurous experiences rescues from the world of the dead Tammuz, her only son, who was taken away before his time. The descent-myth of Orpheus depicts how, after the death... death of Eurydice, his beloved wife, Orpheus descended into Hades, moved Pluto and Persephone to pity with the sweet notes of his lyre, and sought and received their permission to bring back Eurydice to the land of the living but 'on one condition — that Orpheus should precede her and not look back till they arrived on earth.' But alas, 'just before reaching the final limit, his love overcame ...
... of the Greek religion. Its deeper life fed itself on the mystic rites of Orpheus, Bacchus, the Eleusinian mysteries which were deeply symbolic and remind us in some of Page 117 their ideas & circumstances of certain aspects of Indian Yoga. The mysticism & symbolism were not an entirely modern development. Orpheus, Bacchus & Demeter are the centre of an antique and prehistoric, even preliterary ...
... (Twice Acheron I've crossed, victorious, Modulating by turns on the lyre of Orpheus The sighs of the saint and the cries of the fay.) Acheron is a river of the underworld in Greek mythology. Nerval makes it stand for the crise de folie through which he passed twice before writing the poem. The legend of Orpheus trying to bring back his beloved Eurydice from the underworld becomes for Nerval ...
... Demeter (goddess of the earth) at the Eleusinian Mysteries. He is not described elsewhere as a judge of the dead. 44 Orpheus is no doubt mentioned not as a singer and poet but as the founder of Orphism. 45 Musaeus was a bard like Orpheus, but his benefactions consisted in giving oracles and instruction for the curing of disease 46 Hesiod of Ascra ...
... known & practised by the layman, there was also a mystic element and an esoteric belief & practice practised by the initiated. The mysteries of Eleusis, the Thracian rites connected with the name of Orpheus, the Phrygian worship of Cybele, even the Bacchic rites rested on a mystic symbolism which gave a deep internal meaning to the exterior circumstances of creed & cult. Nor was this a modern excrescence; ...
... gods, as great and deep conceptions as ever informed the esoteric doctrine of the Egyptians or inspired the men of an older primitive Greece, the fathers of knowledge who founded the mystic rites of Orpheus or the secret initiation of Eleusis. But over it all there was the "Aryan light", a confidence and joy and a happy, equal friendliness with the Gods which the Aryan brought with him into the world ...
... the Son and the Holy Spirit with God as "His Hands" by which He created the world. 25 Still earlier, "the Spirit, viewed as a divine 23.Hymn 8 quoted by Jocelyn Godwin in "The Golden Chain of Orpheus: A Survey of Musical Esotericisms in the West", in Temenos: A Review devoted to the Arts of the Imagination, edited by Kathleen Raine (London, 1 983), No. 4, p. 16. 24. Gerard Manley Hopkins ...
... whose dream was to create a poetry that would express deeper and higher truths, wondered if there were no poets before Homer, the Western ādi-kavi . His answer was that before Homer there was Orpheus: "Avant Homére, quoi? - Orphée." 136 The Future Poetry , SABCL, Vol. 9, p. 201. 137 Ibid ., p. 283. 138 Ibid ., p. 202. Page 471 There are higher ranges ...
... Times, Boston, 1916; Jean Capart, Thebes, London, 1926; Miles Dawson, Ethics of Confucious, New York 1915; G. Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization: Egypt and Chaldea, London, 1897; S. Reinach, Orpheus: A History of Religions, New York,1909 and 1930; Lynn Thorndike, Short History of Civilization, New York, 1926. 2 Homer, Iliad, translation by W. C. Bryant, Boston, I898' Homer, Odyssey ...
... but had obtained from her the oracle he was seeking. When the time came for him to set out, many other prodigies attended the departure of the army: among these was the phenomenon of the statue of Orpheus which was made of cypress wood and was observed to be covered with sweat. Everyone who saw it was alarmed at this omen, but Aristander urged the king to take courage, for this portent signified that ...
... forming the northern boundary of Thesasly and Greece proper. It was regarded as the home of the chief Greek gods, led by Zeus. Oreads: Nymphs of the mountains and hills. Page 121 Orpheus: A legendary pre-Homeric Thracian poet and musician, founder of the Orphic mysteries, who was able to charm even wild beasts and birds by his music. Palladium: an ancient sacred image of ...
... satisfied. But far below through silent mighty space The green and strenuous earth abandoned rolled. 115 In the companion poem, Love and Death, 116 there is described an Indian Orpheus (Ruru) regaining his lost Eurydice (Priyumvada); the roles of the Savitri story are here reversed, for it is the husband who by the power of his love regains his partner. Ruru, Sage Brigu's grandson ...
... Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate… (Othello, V. ii. 324) Or Hamlet's ... the rest is silence... (Hamlet, V. ii. 372) Or when Virgil's Orpheus says: Heu sed non tua palmas... These are the immense outpourings from the depth of the Page 140 human heart. But the moderns tend to give such feelings a different ...
... (ogres, dwarves, or serpents); the legend of Page 221 Apollo and the Python, Indra and the Serpent Vritta, Thor and the giants, Sigurd and Fafner; the solar myth of the Mayas, the Descent of Orpheus, the Transmutation. It is the serpent biting it own tail. And above all, it is the secret of the Vedic rishis, who were probably the first to discover what they called "the great passage," mahas pathah ...
... of a single woman in its dreadful silence and strength pitted against Death, 20 He said in a letter to His brother. The Story of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. It is the legend of the Mahabharata, Orpheus and Eurydice reversed, but with all the knowledge of the invisible worlds and a fabulous geography of what people call “death.” He corrects The Book of Fate, the last He would revise. Twenty days ...
... earth above it. Because even long after doctors will have declared it to be dead, it will be conscious: its cells are conscious. So there, that’s all. 17 She is there, alive. Aeschylus and Orpheus look pale in comparison. And there is no one to really blame in that formidable tragedy, each of the actors probably did exactly what they had to. I remember, one day in 1969, Mother told me about ...
... Bengali verse had very little to recommend it beyond a certain fatiguing sweetness. Virility, subtlety, scope, these were wanting to it. Then came Madhu Sudan and Bankim, and, like Terpander and Orpheus added fresh strings to the lyre. In Madhu Sudan's hands that nerveless and feminine dialect became the large utterance of the early Gods, a tongue epic and Titanic, a tongue for the storms and whirlwinds ...
... assure you that I have not got so far. If he were to dance in the court downstairs, it would be different, but then what would he do with the palm and other plants?—even if Timirbaran 1 like another Orpheus were to make them move and join the troupe, I fear he would find them rather cumber- some. However, I suppose neither his visit nor Suhrawardy's is for tomorrow, so we will leave these things where ...
... compare it with the kindred tale of Eurydice, the distinction I have sought to draw between the Hindu and Greek mytho-poetic faculty, justifies itself with great force and clearness. The incidents of Orpheus' descent into Hades, his conquering Death and Hell by his music and harping his love back to the sunlight, and the tragic loss of her at the moment of success through a too natural and beautiful human ...
... HOW MUCH LAND DOES A MAN NEED Page 503 50.BALBAN'S JUSTICE 51.THE MYSTERY OF THE TVVENTYFIVE JEWELS 52.THE THREE SURPRISES—Joan E. Cass 53.THAT INATTENTIVE BOY 54.ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE—A Greek Legend 55.MY BROTHER, MY BROTHER—Norah Burke 56.THE LAST LEAF—O. Henry 57.THE LITTLE BLACK BOY—William Blake 58.NO TIME FOR FEAR—Philip Yancey 59.MY STRUGGLE ...
... and throw dirt on it. Because, even after the doctors have declared it dead, it will be conscious. The cells are conscious. That's all I have to say. She is there, alive. Aeschylus and Orpheus look pale.¹ * * * Sri Aurobindo and Mother came to open up the consciousness of the cells to the supramental consciousness and power; this was accomplished; the old genetic code that keeps ...
... with the Olympians but also with Dionysius or Bacchus, who was originally a Thracian god. The worship of Dionysius in due course of time developed a spiritualized form, and this form is attributed to Orpheus. It is maintained that Orphic doctrines contained much that seems to have its first source in Egypt. The Orphics believed in the transmigration of souls; they also maintained that the soul Page ...
... easy, they are cinematographic, adventurous and perfectly picturesque, but the great tragedy or rather the great Mystery of the “end”... or of the beginning of something else. It is vaster than Orpheus and Eurydice — it might well be the Eurydice of the New world. The victory over Death. A great vision is needed to create that film. You will read soon and you will understand. Then things will ...
... story is taken from the Mahabharata, Adi Parva, but Sri Aurobindo has changed the name of the heroine from Pramadvura to Priyumvada. The story has its affiliations also with the Hellenic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. But Sri Aurobindo has transformed the original tale, and Love and Death sweeps on its course with a precipitancy all its own. Ruru, Sage Bhrigu's grandson, loves Priyumvada ...
... refuses or only wants the old way, the whole old species thrashing about. No, She is not a saint, She is a great Adventuress and hers is a formidable Adventure. She who wanted to conquer death. Orpheus. And death is not in the small subterranean passages but all around, in everyday life and everyday people. We are in death and She is the one who strives to pull us humans out of our everyday ...
... the “undulation.” “It's almost as if it were the question I had been given to solve,” said Mother. Mother is, first of all, the battle against death — because Sri Aurobindo had died in 1950. Like Orpheus and Eurydice. And for twenty-three years, she was going to do battle with “the question” like a lioness. But in fact, one cannot go into the undulation and ubiquitous life without something changing ...
... one that always had the last word. So it's as though she wanted to WREST Sri Aurobindo from death, in a way, or tear off that mask of death to see what is behind it. It's a bit like the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. What is there behind it? Why death? So she took me along in that exploration, under one pretext or another. At the beginning she used to call for me, and she sat in that high-backed ...
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