Eurydice's Truth

The poets say he turned back.

They forgot that both gods and men had already silenced me.

Even now I linger in the world of the dead, millennia after my husband showed how little faith he had in me. The stories say that after his awful death he found peace, that he could walk beside me with no need to look back. But in truth, he remains lost in his songs, and I am still an afterthought, or perhaps merely an ideal for his imagination.

I was never the centre of his universe, merely a prop used to portray his greatness and devotion. My role was silence, both in life and in death. Each moment of that journey is seared into my memory, and often I wonder what it would have been like if I had possessed a voice.

These are thoughts I share only with Persephone, who understands such things well enough. We women had little agency then, and little more now.

But I digress. This may be the only time I am allowed to tell my story. I pray to Athena that it may be heard.

I am dead, but evidently not forgotten. Whispers sweep through the Elysian Fields, speaking of a hero, one so in love with his bride that he dares to face down the god of the Underworld to win her back. It seems even gossip thrives in the afterlife.

Then I heard his name.

Orpheus.

The Bard, whose song can calm a storm or break a thousand hearts. It is shocking, but not surprising when I think on it. My husband, the dreamer and romantic, would be the one to make such a gesture.

He was the one who swore that he loved me above all else, that he would even forsake the gods for my affection. I believed him, fool that I was. He promised to protect me from all harm, to immortalise my beauty and grace in song, and to set me amongst the stars so that I would be remembered to the end of time.

Yet when a minor god saw me and hunted me like a hound hunts a rabbit, he was not there.

He was off playing his lyre and drinking with his many followers.

I did not begrudge him that. I knew that his first love was and always would be, his music. The muses adored him and blessed him daily. That was his burden to bear.

Mine was to live forever in his shadow, nothing more than a prompt for his greatness.

“Eurydice, come.”

Hermes, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, extends a hand toward me.

“Hades calls for you. Your husband’s grief is so great that he has wagered a game with a god.”

His eyes flick briefly to mine.

“And you are the prize.”

A prize, I think silently as I place my hand in the messenger god’s.

Even in death, I am still something to be won.

Hermes soon whisks me away to Hades’ throne room, where my husband pleads before the rulers of the dead. He sings and plucks at his lyre, his focus entirely on the performance.

He does not notice me standing there.

Though the lyrics overflow with his love for me and his longing to hold me again, I remain unseen.

Persephone glances toward me, her eyes filled with understanding and quiet sympathy.

The song is haunting, filled with anguish and longing.

Yet it falls strangely flat to my ears.

In the end, the bargain was struck.

All Orpheus must do is walk back to the surface, with me three steps behind him.

I may not speak.

He may not look back.

If he does, I return to death forever.

I pause.

Did I wish to return?

No one asked.

My mother is here. Several of my siblings as well. The Underworld is calm and peaceful, a place where no one hunts me and no one demands that I perform a role.

I am content.

Yet the look of pure joy on my husband’s face as Hermes nudges me forward with his staff keeps me silent.

I was a good and obedient wife, if nothing else.

I kneel before the god and my husband alike.

It is what is expected.

“Rise, bride of Orpheus,” Hades says with a low chuckle. “Your husband has come for you. Let us see if he can keep you.”

I do not dare to meet his gaze.

Instead, I rise slowly and glance toward my husband. He stands proud, radiant with triumph.

My eyes drift once more to Persephone.

She rests a gentle hand upon her husband’s arm, but she says nothing.

“The rules are simple,” Hades continued. “Walk three paces behind your husband and remain silent. All he must do is walk forward until you are both beyond my kingdom.”

Something tightens inside me.

Not breath — I no longer have that.

But something is taken all the same.

When I try to offer the god my thanks, no sound comes.

That is when I understood.

My voice has been taken.

No one notices.

Lowering my head, I follow my husband as he turns and strides confidently toward the path that leads back to the mortal world.

We walked for hours in silence. He never tries to speak to me. This man, whose voice is his life.

Orpheus keeps ploughing forward through the dark and barren caverns.

The only sounds are his harsh breathing, the scrape of his feet across stone, and the rustle of cloth.

Carefully, I keep step, three paces behind him as I was bid. But my feet make no sound upon the ground, and my clothes do not rustle. There is no gentle gasp to my breath, and I have no voice.

The journey is harder than I thought. I watch his back. As it tenses and hunches with anxiety. I scream inside my mind, begging the gods to let him hear me. Knowing it will fall on deaf ears. Women are seldom heard.

The walk is a testament of faith, and with each step I fear he has little. He knows my devotion, but I can see the doubt in the tightness of his body, coiled and ready to break. He does not trust that I will follow faithfully.

Does he think me so weak?

Silent laughter fills my mind. History would remember Orpheus’ story. Bitterness filled my thoughts, and I found it distasteful, but I accepted the truth of it. Even as the main character of this charade, I knew I had been relegated to the position of a silent chorus member. My job was to be there to set the stage.

It was alright, though; I knew my place.

But please, husband! Just this once, have faith.

We were almost there, and I had begun to hope.

There was light at the end of the tunnel, and with each step I became more.

More solid, more corporeal, more alive!

But then he falters, hesitates, and pauses.

His hand reached out and grabbed the wall, clenching at the hard, cold stone.

I can see his jaw tighten and panic beats like a trapped bird in my chest.

No! Orpheus, dear husband, we are almost there. Look, see the light!

Do not betray me like this, not again. You swore to protect me. To guide me and to always trust in my unwavering loyalty.

Do not doubt me now!

We are almost there!

But he can not hear my desperate pleas and turns.

Our eyes meet, and like mist I dissolve into nothing, returning to the Elysian Fields where I had rested before.

Was there regret in his eyes? Pain? Was it for me, or only for himself?

I was not angry.

It was peaceful here.

And the poets would remember only that he turned back.