New life

Often the choice of a new life is determined by the habits of former lives.

So for example, Er saw Orpheus' soul select the life of a swan, being unwilling to be born of a woman, because women had been the cause of his death. In the same way the soul of Ajax 1 was unwilling to become a man and chose the life of a lion, not being able to forget the adjudication of the arms of Achilles. A similar hatred of the human race made the soul of Agamemnon to choose the life of an eagle. Odysseus, he says, drew the last lot and went looking for the life of an ordinary citizen who minds his own business, and at last found it in a corner disregarded by the others as they chose with higher ambitions in mind. When all had chosen their new lives, the MOERAE confirmed their fates and, having come to the Plain of Lethe and its River of Oblivion, they were asked to drink a measure, though some drank more than the measure, and the more they drank the more they forgot.

And after they had fallen asleep a sound of thunder was heard and the souls were wafted in different ways to their birth like shooting stars.

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Orpheus and Theuth?

Orpheus, whom Apollo taught to play the lyre, travelled to Egypt (writing has been created in that land by Theuth, the Egyptian god of the underworld...) where he increased his knowledge about the gods and their initiatory rites, bringing from that country most of his mystic ceremonies, orgiastic rites, and his extraordinary account of his descent to the Underworld.

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Limbs of Orpheus

Orpheus was killed by the women of Thrace.

The motive and manner of his death vary in different accounts, but the earliest known, that of Aeschylus, says that they were Maenads urged by Dionysus to tear him to pieces in a Bacchic orgy because he preferred the worship of the rival god Apollo. His head, still singing, with his lyre, floated to Lesbos, where an oracle of Orpheus was established. The head prophesied until the oracle became more famous than that of Apollo at Delphi, at which time Apollo himself bade the Orphic oracle stop. The dismembered limbs of Orpheus were gathered up and buried by the Muses. His lyre they had placed in the heavens as a constellation.

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Orphic movement

A Hellenistic mystery religion based on the teachings and songs of Orpheus is thought to have eventually arisen in ancient Greece, although no coherent description of such a religion can be constructed from historical evidence.

Most scholars agree that by the 5th century BC there was at least an Orphic movement, with traveling priests who offered teaching and initiation, based on a body of legend and doctrine said to have been founded by Orpheus. Part of the Orphic ritual is thought to have involved the mimed or actual dismemberment of an individual representing the god Dionysus, who was then seen to be reborn.

Orphic eschatology laid great stress on rewards and punishment after bodily death, the soul then being freed to achieve its true life.

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Sun again with Eurydice

Upon leaving the land of death, both Orpheus and Eurydice were forbidden to look back.

The couple climbed up toward the opening into the land of the living, and Orpheus, seeing the Sun again, turned back to share his delight with Eurydice.

In that moment, she disappeared.

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Beautiful songs

When Orpheus' wife, Eurydice, was killed by the bite of a serpent, he went down to the underworld to bring her back.

His songs were so beautiful that Hades finally agreed to allow Eurydice to return to the world of the living. However, Orpheus had to meet one condition: he must not look back as he was conducting her to the surface. Just before the pair reached the upper world, Orpheus looked back, and Eurydice slipped back into the netherworld once again.

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