The Stupor of Orpheus: Ovid's "Metamorphoses" 10.

64-71
Author(s): John Heath
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Apr. - May, 1996), pp. 353-370
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297454
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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS:
OVID'S METAMORPHOSES 10.64-71

Charlescynical,
Segalparodistic
has written recently
Ovid and the humanely that
sensitive Ovid "the line between the
will probably never be definitively drawn because both
Ovids exist in the Metamorphoses."1 As he notes, this is particularly
the case with the Orpheus episode (Met. 10.1-11.66), for the failure
of this archetypal poet/prophet to bring his wife back from the
underworld can be read with either sympathy or derision. Segal
himself, in 1972, had concluded that the bard is "victorious as both
a poet and a lover. Orpheus vindicates the two realms that for Ovid
form the surest and finest basis for human happiness: love and art."2
W. S. Anderson, on the other hand, finds little success in the tale.
The bard is "a melodramatic, egoistic poet of overblown rhetoric
and shallow self-indulgent sentimentality ... a third-rate poet-
orator ... a shallow, self-satisfied, self-indulgent 'lover'... more
than a flawed lover: he is also a flawed poet."3 Segal's later effort

1 Charles Segal, Orpheus: The Myth of the Poet (Baltimore-London 1989) 81.
2 Above, note 1, 64; cf. 70-72; this essay, "Ovid's Orpheus and Augustan
Ideology," was originally published in TAPA 103 (1972) 473-94. Segal is not un-
aware of the mock-epic exaggeration and irony throughout the tale. S. Viarre,
"Pygmalion et Orph~e chez Ovide (Met. X, 243-97)," REL 46 (1968) 246 also sees a
parallel between the artistic success of Pygmalion and that of Orpheus; for similar
sentiments, see A. Primmer, "Das Lied des Orpheus in Ovids Metamorphosen,"
Sprachkunst. Beitriige zur Literaturwissenschaft 10 (1979) 123-37 and G. Gugel,
"Orpheus' Gang in die Unterwelt in den Metamorphosen Ovids (Met. X, 1-71),"
ZA 22 (1972) 39-59 with bibliography.
3W. S. Anderson, "The Orpheus of Virgil and Ovid: flebile nescio quid," pp. 25-50
in Orpheus: The Metamorphosis of a Myth (Toronto 1982), J. Warden, ed.; quotes from
pages 36, 40, 42, 47, with conclusions on the inadequacies of Ovidian artists on p.
48. An even darker reading of the tale and the meaning of the fate of Ovidian art-
ists in general is that of E. W. Leach, "Ekphrasis and the Theme of Artistic Failure
in Ovid's Metamorphoses," Ramus 3 (1974) esp. 118-19. See also D. Lateiner, "Mythic
and Non-Mythic Artists in Ovid's Metamorphoses," Ramus 13 (1984) 14, who sees
the Orpheus episode as a defeat for art, but finds a more positive portrayal of the
artist in the epic overall. For a balanced treatment of Ovid's attitude towards art-
a limited but indispensable means for making sense of experience-see J. B.
Solodow, The World of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Chapel Hill-London 1988) 203-231.
These works, and those in notes 1 and 2, will hereafter be referred to by the author's
last name only.

The Classical Journal 91.4 (1996) 353-70

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 354 JOHN HEATH

to reconcile these two views br

and integrity,4 but there is a sub
ing camps, and the reader of the M
foot on one side or the other.
Two odd similes of unknown provenance which mark the moment
of Orpheus' failure have aroused little critical curiosity in this
context.5 A closer examination will reveal that Ovid has left distinct
signposts in these unique allusions to direct the attentive reader
past Orpheus' artistry towards his inherently unheroic nature.
These similes, which compare the astonishment of Orpheus to that
of two obscure mythological figures, do more than measure the
depths of his pained paralysis: the first also contrasts Orpheus'
poetic adventure and ultimate failure with the heroic success of
Hercules, while the second dramatizes Orpheus' bravado by sug-
gesting that he could have been re-united with his wife if he had
possessed the courage to follow through on his offer to die. The
two similes combine to paint a rather unheroic blush on the plaintive
singer. Ovid seems to be having a bit of cynical fun by deflating
the pathos of the tale just at the moment of its emotional climax.
This reading is supported by Orpheus' idealization of his own poetic

4 Above, note 1. Interestingly, Segal has in some ways come full circle back to
some of his own conclusions made in his much earlier Landscape in Ovid's Meta-
morphoses (Wiesbaden 1969) 76-77.
5 In fact, no serious attention at all has been paid to these eccentric compari-
sons. S. Mack, for instance, at the beginning of her excellent survey of Ovid's poetry,
dismisses the passage by claiming that the "similes would, I am sure, have been no
more illuminating to a Roman reader than they are to us; they only obfuscate."
Ovid (New Haven-London) 8. B. Otis, Ovid as an Epic Poet (Cambridge 1966; the
passage is not reconsidered in the second edition) 184-85 sees the allusions merely
as part of the amusing suasoria to which he reduces the Orpheus episode. J.-M.
Frdcaut is more critical, arguing that the similes create "une rupture facheuse";
L'Esprit et L'Humour chez Ovide (Grenoble 1972) 245. Nor are they examined in the
several studies of Ovid's similes: M. von Albrecht, "Zur Funktion der Gleichnisse
in Ovids Metamorphosen," 280-90 in Studien zum antiken Epos (Meisenheim am Glan
1976), H. G6rgemanns and E. A. Schmidt, eds.; E. G. Wilkins, "The Classification
of the Similes of Ovid," CW 25 (1932) 73-78, 81-86; S. G. Owen, "Ovid's Use of
Simile," CR 45 (1931) 97-106; J. A. Washietl, De Similitudinibus Imaginibusque
Ovidianis (Bonn 1883); T. F. Brunner, "The Function of the Simile in Ovid's Meta-
morphoses," CJ 61 (1966) 356, 358 observes simply that the similes underline the
emotional climax of the tale and supply fodder for two more transfigurations. For
a recent demonstration of Ovid's careful manipulation of "multiple similes" in the
epic (coincidentally in this same episode), see J. F. Miller, "Orpheus as Owl and
Stag: Ovid Metamorphoses 11.24-27," Phoenix 44 (1990) 140-47; for extended com-
parisons in his elegiac works, see C. Ahern, "Daedalus and Icarus in the Ars
Amatoria," HSCP 92 (1989) 273-96 and P. Watson, "Mythological Exempla in Ovid's
Ars Amatoria," CP 78 (1983) 117-26.

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 355

creation, Pygmalion, a device by which O

cates Orpheus' sentimentality.
At the death of Eurydice, Ovid's bereaved
descent and charms the denizens of Tartarus
The poet then turns the tables on the usua
however, by stunning him into silence wit
wife (10.64-71):

non aliter stupuit gemina nece coniugis O

quam tria qui timidus, medio portante ca
colla canis vidit; quem non pavor ante rel
quam natura prior, saxo per corpus obort
quique in se crimen traxit voluitque vide
Olenos esse nocens, tuque, o confisa figur
infelix Lethaea tuae, iunctissima quond
pectora, nunc lapides, quos umida susti

The tale of the unnamed man's petrifactio

in chains is otherwise unknown,6 althou
references to similar incidents. Euphorio
women and children who hide from the
as Hercules drags him across the land.7
Hercules leads the three-headed dog to E
more familiar account of the Erymanth
pithos.8 Neither of these accounts, how
metamorphosis. Similarly, the story of the
and Lethaea into stone is unique to Ovi
two similes within the tale of Orpheus
examining them independently, but th
syntactically as well as thematically, an
relevance which must ultimately be expl
Cerberus' power to petrify metaphorical
matic sense, of course. His task as watch
the dead in and the living out, threatening
intend to transgress the boundaries of n
few of the more substantial intruders, ha

6 See B6mer ad loc. and P. M. C. Forbes Irving, Me

(Oxford 1990) 288.
7 Scheidweiler fr. 62; cf. Diodorus 4.26.1, where
and Seneca's Hercules Furens 827-29. Hermesianax r
the glance (3X1igg') of Cerberus' cruel eye (6p11a c
are no references in these passages, however, to the
BT. H. Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece: A

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 356 JOHN HEATH

appetite for raw flesh.9 Thus the

abduction in Ovid's brief account c
Still, the fact remains that we ha
transformation. Of the over thir
sented in the epic, the cause of th
to fear.10 We are justified in aski
crucial moment. Why has Ovid
describe Orpheus' shock? The poet
potentially petrifying scene fro
alludes to this epic incident to a
traditional role as silencer of Ha
tinctly un-Herculean. The episode
with the accomplishments of th
Hercules, not Orpheus, we are rem
retrieving the object of his quest
P. M. C. Forbes Irving, citing Ze
who had hidden from Hercules
turned to stone when he peeked
are perhaps modelled on the story
pursuing a bit further, for the G
other heroic catabases. Best kno
appearance of the Gorgon's head in
(11.633-35).13 But more significant

9 Hes. Th. 311, Kpp3Epov 6iloriav. Hesio

wags his tail at those entering, but threaten
Virgil describes the hound as lying in h
bones (Aeneid 8.296-97); Henry ad loc., p
in the underworld, asks "Who catered?"
(London 8th edition 1925), Hillis tr., 244 n
is late.
10 This does not include the mostly anonymous 200 stunned assailants of Perseus
(5.208-209). Petrification is the most common form of transformation in the Meta-
morphoses; see D. F. Bauer, "The Function of Pygmalion in the Metamorphoses of
Ovid," TAPA 93 (1962) 1-21, Lateiner 14, and W. Quirin, Die Kunst Ovids in der
Darstellung des Verwandlungsaktes (Giessen 1930) 82-105. S. Viarre, L'Image et la Pensde
dans les Metamorphoses d'Ovide (Paris 1964) 392-94 offers a useful comparison of vari-
ous characters' responses to "the sacred."
11 Leach 118-19 contrasts Orpheus with Hercules and Perseus, but does not
refer to the similes; see Anderson's comments ad 52 on the "ambiguous note towards
heroism so typical of Ovid."
12 Above, note 6, 288.
13 Just what Odysseus has to fear remains unclear, but later references suggest
that it was the Gorgon's power to turn men into stone with one glance which was
her source of power. Indeed, elsewhere Homer suggests it is the eyes or "terrible
gaze" of the Gorgon which are so horrifying (11. 8.349; 11.36-37; cf. 5.741-42),

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 357

context is the appearance of the Gorgon in H

for Cerberus. Although we have no identifia
epic account of this adventure, several schol
the basic outline of the poem.
Eduard Norden argued plausibly that Vi
descent at least partially on two literary cat
and especially one by Hercules to fetch Cerb
and Noel Robertson have discussed two Pinda
of this lost archaic poem, and for our purpos
revealed one element of particular interest.1
following incident (as Apollodorus [2.5.12]
the souls saw him [Hercules] they fled, ex
Gorgon Medusa. Hercules drew his sword a
she were alive, and then learned from Hermes that she was an
empty phantom." The important point to notice is that Hercules
meets and fears Medusa as he enters the world of the dead. This
episode was so well-established that Aristophanes could parody it
in the Frogs, and Virgil draws on this scene from Hercules' epic to
provide a heroic context for Aeneas' search for his father and his
future (Aen. 6.289 f.).16 Hercules' meeting with the Gorgons made
a lasting impression on authors of similar catabases. After examining
the evidence for the lost epic, Lloyd-Jones tentatively suggests that
the author of Hercules' catabasis may have known the Nekyia of
the Odyssey and included this passage as a critique of Odysseus'
heroism. Odysseus fears the Gorgon's head and runs, whereas

although it is not until Pindar that we find an explicit reference to the power of
petrification (Pyth. 10.46 f.; cf. Aesch. PV 798-800; Eur. Or. 1520; P1. Symp. 198c)
For art and the development of the Gorgon from mere head (gorgoneion) to full-
figure, see the article in LIMC by I. Krauskopf and S.-C. Dahlinger; D. A. Napier,
Masks, Transformation, and Paradox (Berkeley 1986) 83-134; J.-P. Vernant, La mort
dans les yeux (Hachette 1985) 31-53.
14 E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro: Aeneis Buch VI (Stuttgart 1957); see page 5 and
note 2 for references in the text to the two catabases. Traces of this Herculean epic
can be uncovered in Bacchylides 5.71 f., Aristoph. Frogs, Aeneid 6, and Apollod.
2.5.12
5s H. Lloyd-Jones, "Heracles of Eleusis: P. Oxy. 2672 and P.S.I. 1391," Maia 19
(1967) 206-229; N. Robertson, "Heracles' Catabasis," Hermes 108 (1980) 274-300; see
also R. J. Clark, Catabasis: Vergil and the Wisdom Tradition (Amsterdam 1979) 88-90.
16 In the Frogs, Dionysus, disguised as Hercules, is threatened with snakes,
monsters, and an array of horrific demons (143-44, especially 465-77). This list is
capped by a reference to the "Teithrasian Gorgons," the mere mention of whom
drives the cowering god to lose control of his bowels. Aeneas draws his sword
against the monsters (the Gorgons included) which he meets as he descends into
Hades. He would have rushed them, we are told, if the Sibyl had not informed him

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 358 JOHN HEATH

Hercules improves upon Odysseus'

This noteworthy action occurr
pursuing Cerberus, thus making
the two horrifying monsters.
Cerberus also belongs in Hades,
to be subdued by Hercules (H
immediately before the reference
as a guard over the souls (Hes. T
Cerberus serve as some form of se
figures also share a similarly inti
By Ovid's time Cerberus was a s
with other viperous creatures of t
and the Furies. If Ovid's Cerber
the same fashion as Medusa, then
his quest in the Metamorphoses w
his lost epic. Both heroes must ov
can freeze and silence their assailants. As Hercules becomes a more
successful Odysseus by withstanding the appearance of the Gorgon
and enchaining Cerberus, Ovid's Orpheus becomes afailed Hercules

that they were mere shadows. Servius on Gorgones remarks that Virgil's editors
removed the following four verses: Gorgonis in medio portentum inmane Medusae, /
vipereae circum ora comae, cui sibila torquent / infamesque rigent oculi, mentoque sub
imo Iserpentum extremis nodantur vincula caudis. This is an unlikely supposition, to
be sure (although accepted by some scholars; see Austin ad loc. for discussion),
but it is interesting to note that someone before Servius felt the Gorgons deserved
more attention at this point.
17 Above, note 15, 227.
is The similarities between Cerberus and the Gorgon in function are noted by
Vernant (above, note 13) 47. On the exact location of Cerberus, which seems to
switch even within the same work between immediately across the Styx and next
to the throne of Pluto (e.g. Aeneid 6.417-18 and 6.396 with Servius ad 396), see
Norden ad loc., who explains the discrepancy in connection with the lost epic of
Heracles' catabasis.
19 The snakes which traditionally ornament Medusa appear quite early in both
art and literature, where one can trace a gradual development from a general asso-
ciation with snakes to serpentine locks. The Gorgon is already snake-girded in th
pseudo-Hesiodic Scutum 233-34; cf. Pind. 01. 13.63; Pyth. 12.9,16; Aesch. PV 798
Eur. Ion 997 f.; see Aesch. Cho. 1048 and Garvie's note ad loc. for similar develop
ment for snakes with the Eumenides, who may also dwell in the underworld. An
in fact the coiffure of Ovid's Medusa is the snakiest and most petrifying of al
with nine separate references in the Metamorphoses to her serpentine visage and an
entire scene of human petrifaction. Snakes: Met. 4.615, 699, 741, 771, 784, 790, 801;
5.241; 6.119; Petrifying: 4.655-56, 741 f., 778 f., esp. 5.180 f. The literary and artisti
traditions for the hell-hound seem to work in opposite directions, with art appar-
ently influencing literature. F. Brommer points out that Heracles' capture of th
dog is the only one of the canonical twelve labors which appears in visual repre

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 359

in his attempt to recover the dead and is tur

That this lies behind Ovid's simile become
tion of Orpheus' own words, for he is careful fr
of his labor to insist quite explicitly that he i
With typical Ovidian irony, his actions bear
of his statement.
When Orpheus first addresses Dis and Proserpina, he explains
unequivocally that he has not come on a Herculean quest (10.21-22):

... nec uti villosa colubris

terna Medusaei vincirem guttura monstri.

It may be observed first of all that Ovid has altered the more familiar
sequence of visits to the underworld. Although Orpheus and
Hercules belong to the same basic mythological generation (they
both sail on the Argo, for example; these things can never be pushed
too far, of course), Orpheus' descent usually comes before Hercules'
quest for Cerberus.21 Ovid has gone slightly out of his way to put
Hercules' story in book nine, before Orpheus' adventure, so the
inverted sequence makes it possible for Orpheus to cite the already
deified hero as a precedent.
The bard reassures the underworld powers that he has not made
the arduous journey to overwhelm the "Medusaean" monster of
three throats shaggy with snakes. Why Medusaean, an adjective

sentation later than in literature; Heracles (New Rochelle 1986) 75 (S. Schwarz, trns.).
Cerberus make his first appearance in western art on a Middle Corinthian kotyle
from Argos (c. 590-80) complete with snakes sprouting from his neck and body;
see H. Payne, Necrocorinthia (College Park 1971) 130 and S. Woodford and J. Spier,
"Kerberos," in LIMC p. 31. It is the Latin poets who fix the literary Cerberus with a
serpentine tail and snakes about his neck (Aen. 6.419; Culex 221; Tib. 1.3.69;
Lygdamus 4.87-88; Ovid Met. 10.21-22; Sen. Herc. F. 785-87, 812; Sil. 13.591).
20 Stupeo and its compounds are often linked to petrification in Ovid. Narcissus,
for example, adstupet ipse sibi vultuque inmotus eodem / haeret, ut e Pario formatum
marmore signum (Met. 3.418-19; cf. 5.205-206, 5.509-510; Pont. 1.2.25 f.).
21 The first extant reference to Orpheus' catabasis, for example, could hardly
be more explicit. In Euripides' Alcestis, Admetus wishes he had Orpheus' power to
assuage the gods of the netherworld (357-62). Since Hercules appears on stage
shortly afterward still in the midst of his labors, long before his own pursuit of
Cerberus, we can only conclude that Orpheus' trip was the earlier effort. Even
Seneca, who follows Ovid in so many ways, has a hopeful chorus suggest that
since Orpheus had been successful in returning from Hades, Hercules would be
too: quae vinci potuit regia carmine, / haec vinci poterit regia viribus (Herc. F. 590-91).
Classical authors consistently compare and contrast the two catabases of Hercules
and Orpheus. From the first reference to Orpheus' descent in Euripides, through
Virgil and up to Seneca, the two heroic efforts could hardly be disassociated.

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360 JOHN HEATH

which is never before or after ap

arily limited to Medusa herself an
spring Pegasus)? At Met. 7.408-
the "Echidnean dog" (Echidneae
appropriate matronymic. We shou
the epithet is not merely orna
describing the origins of Medea's p
soil"), a plant which sprouted fro
the raging Cerberus as he was dra
The allusion to his serpentine mot
of the residue from his own mout
then, to interpret the reference
as a piece of erudite genealogica
pressed connection is unique and
particularly helpful here, mer
Cerberus evokes an adamantine re
This is true, of course, but it over
the only reference in all of classi
the watch-dog of Hades is still
using this unusual introduction t
score the Herculean context of
himself at the beginning of his
insists that he has not undertaken this adventure to snatch Cerberus.
He uses an epithet which makes the connection clear. On his way
to snatch the hound of hell Hercules had encountered a Medusaei ...
monstri-Medusa herself!--and Orpheus wants no part of that
adventure. It is only fitting, then, that Hercules' capture of Cerberus
becomes the capping image to the bard's failure a mere forty lines
later. Orpheus is frozen like the man who witnessed Hercules' success.
Orpheus has fulfilled his promise. He has been no Hercules, but
instead has been frozen and silenced, a fate which Odysseus had
feared but which Hercules avoided. Rather than causing stupor on
those he should, he is paralyzed by his failure. Cerberus is not frozen,
as was to be expected, but instead freezes (through the force of the
simile) Orpheus. It would be worth looking at this reversal a bit
more closely.

22 Medusa is usually the aunt of Cerberus, since she is a sister of Echidna (e.g.
Hes. Th. 270-336, with West's comments on 295 and 306); see Bomer ad loc. The
author of the Culex also refers to Orpheus' influence over Cerberus (270-71), but does
not use stupeo or one of its compounds. On Ovid's adaptation of Virgil's underworld in
the Georgics, see D. West, "Orpheus and Eurydice," JACT 4 (1984) 9-10.

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 361

One of the traditional elements of Orphe

of the dead is his charming of the shades
Cerberus plays a central role. In fact, a c
catabases is the placating of Cerberus, ei
or by music, in order for the intrusive wan
world powers. Euripides presents us with t
to Orpheus' search for his wife in the A
insists that if he had the bard's words a
songs (iujvotot xInIjoavrz), the hound o
stopped him (Alc. 360-62). A passage
Hermesianax is even more to the point. Th
sails to Hades, endures the dreadful glance
only his lyre wins over the gods (Ath. Dei
beginning, then, it seems that Cerberus
obstacle in Orpheus' path to the underwo
It is Virgil, however, who fixes the v
temporary victory over the underworld w
element of transfixing found in the verb

quin ipsae stupuere domus atque intim

Tartara caeruleosque inplexae crinibus
Eumenides, tenuitque inhians tria Cerbe
atque Ixionii vento rota constitit orbis.

Virgil had used the same root earlier in hi

musical powers of two shepherds whos
animals (quorum stupefactae carmine lynce
employs obstipuisse to describe the effe
three great bards: Orpheus (Am. 3.9.22 f.),
Ovid himself (Tr. 1.11.7 f.)! After the Geor
its compounds become the standard ver
portray Orpheus' mastery over the creatur

23 Cerberus is most commonly associated with

especially a brazen voice, so it is his subsequent sile
(or from a drugged offering by those less gifted a
sign of victory. Hesiod already describes him as Xa
866uot iievr;, which West ad loc. notes "we might
probably supposed to hear Cerberus' barking); cf.
personat; Tib. 1.3.71-72; Prop. 3.18.23; 4.5.4; 4.7.52; Cu
94; Sil. 2.252; Lucian Men. 10; Apul. Met. 6.19; and r
Horace Carm. 2.19.31-32; 3.11.19; Lygdamus 4.88; an
"Orpheus and Eurydice," CQ 11 (1952) 116 suggests
silencing goes back to a lost Hellenistic poem whic

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 362 JOHN HEATH

The halls themselves, the depths

are transfixed. Ixion's wheel comes to a halt, and Cerberus is
muzzled.24 Horace develops this image by placing Cerberus more
directly in the picture. After the poet has narrowly escaped being
killed by a tottering tree, he imagines what the underworld would
have been like. There he would have seen Sappho and Alcaeus,
whose powers sound remarkably familiar (Carm. 2.13.33-36):

quid mirum, ubi illis carminibus stupens

demittit atras belua centiceps
auris, et intorti capillis
Eumenidum recreantur angues?

A scholiast ad loc. says simply: Orphei fabulam tractat, quae refert

Cerberum citharae cantu insopitum.25 The collection of ideas behind
stupeo-paralysis, shock, amazement, silence, petrification-has
become Orpheus' trademark, as he produces stupor in those who
listen to his lament, in this case Cerberus himself. Propertius, for
example, seeks poetic inspiration in Ascra's grove not in order to
charm the trees and wild animals tamed by Orpheus' words, but to
overwhelm Cynthia (2.13.7-10):

non ut Pieriae quercus mea verba sequantur

aut possim Ismaria ducere valle feras,
sed magis ut nostro stupefiat Cynthia versu.

Ovid, then, is in familiar territory when amidst the results of

Orpheus' song in the underworld he describes the expected stu-
pefaction: stupuitque Ixionis orbis (Met. 10.42). Here the quasi-technical
stup- root is applied to one of the traditional inhabitants, but the
hell-hound is absent. Orpheus, in fact, quite uncharacteristically
has managed to avoid Cerberus completely in his descent. Ovid
does not even mention the canine sentinel in the long list of under-

Orpheus to retrieve his wife. It should be remembered, however, that Orpheus'

search was linked with Cerberus' obstruction as early as the Alcestis.
24 The Orphic taming of Cerberus becomes for Horace the mark of the power
of the gods as well (Bacchus and Mercury) over natural forces; Carm. 2.19.29 f.;
3.11.14 f.
25 On Ovid's adaptation of Virgil's Cerberus and the hound's unexpected ab-
sence in Ovid, see D. E. Hill, "From Orpheus to Ass's Ears: Ovid, Metamorphoses
10.1-11.193," in Author and Audience in Latin Literature, T. Woodman and J. Powell,
eds. (Cambridge 1992) 245 nn. 3 and 9.

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 363

world figures spellbound by Orpheus' son

the poet were saving Cerberus for a later, m
And this delayed episode does not bring
confrontation with the snaky hound,
Orpheus' own paralysis to the power of Cer
individual. Cerberus is not silenced or f
Orpheus as we might have expected. Th
Orpheus' performance altogether. Instead
at the crucial moment of Orpheus' failu
Orphic (and Medusean) powers. Ovid r
sequence by having Cerberus silence some
compared to Orpheus) in the same fashi
silences Cerberus. It is Orpheus who is struc
His songs are of no use now. Orpheus is
error, his turning back to see his wife. He
loss induced by human weakness, his fe
wife. His own very human loss of control, n
has driven away his wife's shade. He has in
be no Hercules. Unsuccessful in his heroic
up from the dead, he is fairly compared to
to stone at the sight of Cerberus. He is a f
the hell-hound these powers at the end
complete his contrast of Orpheus' catabasis
the successful hero eluded the power of
out Cerberus; Orpheus fails to bring out
cally suffers the Gorgon's punishment from C
should not be overlooked that, as Anderson
analogue" for Eurydice in the simile is Cer
and Ovid cannot resist taking images and t
absurd conclusions-Eurydice becomes th

26 Hercules does overcome death, not just symbolic

(mentioned only in passing by Ovid, Met. 7.410, 9.1
apotheosis. Ovid devotes more attention by far to thi
f., esp. 9.134-272) than any other labor. See W. C. S
the Metamorphoses: Hercules and Ulysses," in Ovi
1958) 273-82 and L. Barkan, The Gods Made Flesh
83; contra is G. K. Galinsky, The Herakles Theme (Tot
who argues that Ovid deflates the heroism of Herc
the centrality of the tales of Heracles and Meleage
Otis (above, note 5) 194 f.
27 Anderson 43.
28 Noted by Leach 107.

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 364 JOHN HEATH

turns onlookers into stone and m

her infernal home. At whom did
himself shell-shocked and petrifi
the simile, then, is flattering nei
bride.
The first of Ovid's similes presents Orpheus as a failed, an
"inverted" Hercules. In the Metamorphoses it is usually the man of
action who gains his objective-Perseus, Hercules, Aeneas, and Caesar,
for example29-or the clever rhetorical hero like Ulysses or Mercury
who sails through life.30 But Orpheus is a musician, an artist, and
members of these guilds do not fare so well in the epic. Orpheus'
failure and silencing elicit from the poet a second mythological com-
parison of equally obscure provenance. Here we shall find that Ovid
has presented Orpheus with a means of success well within the
grasp of the un-Herculean mourner, a method of finally re-uniting
with his lost love. But once again the bard proves himself to be
unequal to the task.
The astonished Orpheus is not only frozen like the witness of
Cerberus' unwilling visit to the upper world, but he is also com-
pared to the petrified Olenos and Lethaea (10.68-71):

quique in se crimen traxit voluitque videri

Olenos esse nocens, tuque, o confisa figurae,
infelix Lethaea, tuae, iunctissima quondam
pectora, nunc lapides, quos umida sustinet Ide.

Olenos, though innocent, preferred to share his wife's punishment

and lose his life rather than live without her. They are both turned
to stone (nunc lapides, 10.71). Segal suggests that this tale softens
the harshness of Orpheus' inconsolable grief, "for it places the union
of lovers and nature's sympathy with them above the pride and
folly that cause their doom."31 That is to take the point of compari-
son to be the once (and now stone dead) iunctissima pectora. But
Ovid is weighing not just the emotions and results but the causes
as well, and here we are invited to compare and contrast the actions

29 C. Altieri, "Ovid and the New Mythologists," Novel 7 (1973) 36; B. R.

Fredericks (= Nagle), "Divine Wit vs. Divine Folly: Mercury and Apollo in Met. 1-2,"
CJ 72 (1977) 244-49; B. R. Nagle, "Amor, Ira, and Sexual Identity in Ovid's Meta-
morphoses," CA 3 (1984) 240-41; Barkan (above, note 27) 52-55.
30 Segal 62; Primmer (above, note 2) 137 also sees Olenos' sacrifice as parallel
with Orpheus' demonstration of true love.
31 See Anderson 43.

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 365

of Olenos and Orpheus. The crime of Ol

her excessive confidence in her own beauty
perhaps a hubristic boast found so frequent
it be Orpheus' unrealistic confidence in his
art itself, which is in fact quite successful),
and accept the tragic nature of life, which i
failure? Orpheus had concluded his appeal
world (the exact words of which Ovid h
to quote) with a bold claim, apparently u
(10.38-39):

quodsi fata negant veniam pro coniuge, certum est

nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum.

Now, with the second death of his wife, Orpheus has an opportunity
to prove that this was not a mere rhetorical bluff but an actual
protestation of the depths of his love. He can return to the world of
the dead if he really wants to, if he is willing to die. He can follow
the path bravely taken by Olenos: he may join his wife through
death, as he had warned the gods he would do. But he does not.
Indeed, as far as Ovid lets us see, the bard does not even consider
it. Orpheus has conceded that he is no Hercules, but that very
admission places him in the context of a heroic quest. He attempts
to accomplish through his musical gifts what Hercules had done
by force. He wants to redefine epic victory by rejecting the
Herculean reliance on physical force and relying instead on art
itself. In this redirection of epic he is initially successful, but he is
forced to confront the textual fact of Ovid's epic that this kind of
victory is susceptible to corruption, especially by human emotion.
The recovery of his wife through song is not as secure as Hercules'
capture of Cerberus. Ovid seems to be suggesting to his readers-
and characters-that art can order life only briefly and tenuously
before the reality of the human condition inevitably restores chaos.
When the Thracian bard's excessive emotion undermines his own
temporary poetic success and results in the loss of Eurydice a

32 W. C. Stephens, "Descent to the Underworld in Ovid's Metamorphoses," CJ

53 (1957-58) 179.
33 This "over-literalization" is one of Ovid's favorite techniques in the epic;
see Galinsky Ovid's Metamorphoses (Berkeley-LA 1975) 179-84 on "'Logical' in-
congruity and Visual Over-explicitness," and for an excellent discussion of this
undermining technique in his elegy, see I. M. Le M. Du Quesnay, "The Amores,"
p. 18 in Ovid (London-Boston 1973), J. W. Binns, ed.

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 366 JOHN HEATH

second time, he is in effect forced

to face these realities of life an
must actually die.
Ovid puts Orpheus in this most
a poetic conceit. The symbolic d
must be transformed into a lite
pared. Ovid gives him the oppo
gain his objective. Like Olenos,
carefully placed the bard in a c
Herculean traits and proves his
neither the physical ability nor th
a traditional hero, Orpheus can st
attempt at artistic success and co
offer, however, and instead attem
his poetic victory. He still beli
through his art, but he is quickly
having little patience with his r
second effort in less than two ve
and wishing to cross into the und
husband finds his path firmly blo
Orpheus' art has been underm
the underworld, a song which Ov
out to be a lie. Orpheus' sentimen
die rather than be separated from
no more than sophistic posturing
more fun at his character's exp
syncratic criticism of the bard
Plato's Symposium (179b-e), blam
cowardice at which Ovid is so sly
contrasted with true lovers who h
ones. Alcestis, Phaedrus argues, w
and was so admired for her action
Hades. Orpheus, on the other ha
lacking the spirit to die for the s
him (179d):

'Op(pqa 8eijv'vflEv,
Ci7; yUvatcI~o;p' Oid.ypoto
a~rliiv %d&eXi &Tint
o- )6vF-;, aine'uylav dC "At
taXOwadrEOat ou,&'CE
k61Et, ypdaa E{igav?E;
Av it0ap&86q, ;al o a rouX&v x vera zoi 'p0Tzoo &anoOvi,-Etv iobanp "AXhEazt;,
dXX& 5talXav&aoat (^v EiatGvat EiS "Atiou.

He tried to enter Hades alive, and thus was given only a wraith
instead of the real woman for his return. According to this account,

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 367

the gods arranged for Orpheus to be killed

as a penalty for his cowardice, his refusal
"die for love."34 Interestingly, Phaedrus co
with Orpheus' most familiar characteristic:
from an artiste (iiaE i v Ki0app86o)?
So the reliance of Ovid's bard on his lyr
is not meant to highlight the romance or
undercut it-he is taking the easy way o
sabotaging of Orpheus' character and his
parallelism drawn by the simile itself:
Eurydice is to ... Lethaea! What is it that E
to warrant her comparison to a convicted
No matter how sincerely the Thracian so
for his lost love, Ovid, as so often in the p
settle into a one-dimensional reading of th
Orpheus fails. Stunned and silenced, h
away once again. Rejecting the model of H
Ovid's offer to play the self-destructive lo
his faith in his art. This confidence is mis
only be reunited with Eurydice when he is
and permanently abandoned (11.64-66).36
effect been forced by his sparagmos to pla
he can pass his time securely with his
forgotten forever. The similes tell us w
Hercules, and he is not willing to die in or
reuniting with his wife. His own subsequ

34 David Sansone has argued that this version o

found in a fifth-century tragedy (perhaps by Aristi
but in fact the only version of the myth concerning
the fifth-century; "Orpheus and Eurydice in the Fift
In either case Ovid would be drawing on his reader
variant of the myth in which Orpheus' cowardice
tabu-caused him to lose his wife a second time. T
hero was obvious to the Greeks. A scholiast on
remarks that there was some question in the sourc
he was (&ao6evij; "v), sailed with the heroes; for the
see M. Detienne, "The Myth of 'Honeyed Orpheus',"
and Society, ed. R. L. Gordon (Cambridge 1981) and
and Heads-Indo-European Structures in Greek Myt
to Greek Myth, ed. L. Edmunds (Baltimore-London
35 Anderson 43: " ... Ovid deflects the motif of gu
Eurydice."
36 Leach 127 comments on the absence of Orpheus' most distinguishing
accoutrement in these final lines of the tale.

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 368 JOHN HEATH

would like to be, how he would

ideal world, art and passion com
bring the dead to life-Eurydice w
Nowhere is this more clear than i
where Orpheus carefully recreates
a happy ending. This sanguine fan
sweetness of the sculptor's succes
about the bard: he is hopelessly
credit for the transformation of
sponsibility for its sappy ending.
eye to eye.37
The story of Pygmalion and his statue can be read quite simply
as a triumph of the artist,38 and the sculptor is certainly praised for
his ability, but that is not the only point of Orpheus' tale. Art, even
the greatest art, is nothing unless animated by passion. It is not
only Pygmalion's technical skills which are rewarded, but also his
piety to Venus. By honoring the goddess (as the Cerastae and
Propoetides had not)-first by responding to her enemies so
strongly, then by falling in love, and finally through his pious
offerings at her festival-he is granted his wish. It is not merely
the case that his art is so good that is comes to life, but also that his
passion is so real that the object of it comes to life. It is given breath
by Venus, and that breath is evoked by the long caresses of the
sculptor himself.39 Here in the middle of Orpheus' series of narratives
we find passion and art neatly balanced in a disconcertingly cheery

37 Orpheus' tales have been the subject of much recent discussion, particu-
larly from a narratological approach; see Hill (above, note 26) and especially B. R.
Nagle, "Two Miniature Carmina Perpetua in the Metamorphoses: Calliope and
Orpheus," GB 15 (1988) 99-125, and M. Janan, "The Book of Good Love? Design
Versus Desire Metamorphoses 10," Ramus 17 (1988) 110-37; also Segal 85-94, who
emphasizes Ovid's re-working and subversion of Virgilian themes. For the
narratological approach in general, see G. Davis, "Lycaon to Augustus: Studies in
the Narrative Economy of Ovid's Metamorphoses" (diss. U. C. Berkeley 1969) and
The Death of Procris (Rome 1983), D. Konstan, "The Death of Argus, or What Stories
Do: Audience Response in ancient Fiction and Theory," Helios 18 (1991) 15-30; J.
Heath, Actaeon, the Unmannerly Intruder (New York 1992) 53-99; A. Keith, The Play
of Fictions: Studies in Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 2 (Ann Arbor 1992) with pp. 3-7 for
references to other studies, especially the important series of articles by Nagle.
Also of use for the Hellenistic subtleties of Orpheus' songs is P. E. Knox, Ovid's
Metamorphoses and the Traditions of Augustan Poetry (Cambridge 1986) 49-64.
38 See Leach's 124 n. 40 for references; Leach herself argues, more correctly, I
believe, that the episode "must be burlesque."
39 H. Frinkel, Ovid: A Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley-LA 1945) 94-95;
Solodow (above, note 5) 218-19.

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 THE STUPOR OF ORPHEUS 369

tale. This is the bard's ideal, a world wh

work together to create and re-create life.
perhaps, but it counters Ovid's more b
a vision which dominates Orpheus' own s
which human emotions seem to be inhe
art and inevitably destroy it. These contr
lighted by the parallels between Orpheus an
would, if it were only possible, re-write
pattern.
It has long been noted that Orpheus (or Ovid) apparently de-
serves credit for transforming the tale from a king's perverse and
consummated lust for a statue to an exemplar of the power of an
artist. Perhaps taking his cue from Ovid's own tale of piety and
impossible passion rewarded, Iphis and Ianthe, which had been
related at the end of the previous book (that is, just before Orpheus'
own story), Orpheus has remodelled the story to fit his own. Here
is another artist who rejected women and whose art could bring
his lover to life.40 The very expression which Orpheus uses to
summarize the sculptor's marvelous achievement-ars adeo latet
arte sua (252)-is a dictum which comes from the rhetorical hand-
books.41 The bard sees himself and his persuasive song in
Pygmalion. Both accomplish the ultimate act of creation: they animate
stone (the reverse of so many metamorphoses in the epic, such as
the Propoetides, in which the living are petrified). Orpheus usually
brings life to rocks when he sings, as he in fact is doing even as he
sings of Pygmalion, for we learn in Book 11 that his song vivifies
the rocks in his audience (saxa sequentia ducit, 11.2; cf. 11.10-13, 18,
30, 41-42, 45). Indeed, as we have seen, the bard also is customarily
given the metaphorical ability to turn others (especially those in
the underworld) into stone. Ovid, however, had uniquely stupefied
Orpheus, transformed him into rock to mark his heroic failure.
Orpheus, now writing his own tale, puts things back in order, with
the master artist animating stones again. Here is art that not
only depetrifies its subject but literally comes alive! The bard
carefully marks Pygmalion's response to the transforming statue
(10.287-89):

40 For the history of Pygmalion's statue, see Solodow (above, note 3) 215;
FrAnkel (above, note 40) 96-97; Bauer (above, note 10) 14-16; on parallels with Iphis
and Ianthe, Galinsky (above, note 34) 86-87; Otis (above, note 5) 370-71. For
Orpheus and Pygmalion in general, see Viarre.
41 Noted by Lateiner 29 n. 97 with reference to the Rhet. ad Herennium and
secondary sources.

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370 JOHN HEATH

dum stupet et dubie gaudet fall

rursus amans rursusque manu s
corpus erat!

This is a direct inversion of Or

sculptor (amans) is stupefied (stup
fears deception as his wishes ar
flesh. In Ovid's account of Orph
feared failure, grew anxious to
and was stupefied at his failur
quickener of stone, is symbolically
from flesh to corpse. Pygmalion
he vitalizes the ivory statue of hi
love can override death itself. Her
the power of the artist, Orpheus
would have ended if he could hav
own vision.

By itself-and Ovid's tales used to be read out of context al

too often-the story of Pygmalion's success drips with honeye
optimism. But Ovid has carved a dangerous trench under the
sculptor's pedestal. We listen to a disenchanted and failed bar
create a tale of an enchanted and triumphant artist. The sentiment
is understandable, but the victory resides only in Orpheus' imagi-
nation. In the fictional world of a fictional singer love and ar
combine to produce miraculous, death-defying love. Orpheus,
however, must die to find his own muted happiness. He is trapped
in Ovid's world, not Pygmalion's, a mythological reality wher
artists fail and less subtle characters like Hercules succeed, where
similes may undermine one's character, and where irony, wit, and
a comfortably modern cynicism are the fundamental laws which
shape the landscape. Orpheus will meet his bloody end when the
power of his song is overcome by the irrational howls of vengeful
women. This is the "real" world of the Metamorphoses. And, in the
end, Ovid of course gets everything his own way. Orpheus' tragic,
"Vergilian" tale is lightened by reminders of the bard's weakness,
and the saccharine story of Pygmalion's triumph is diluted by
association with its sentimental and stupefied narrator.42

JOHN HEATH
Santa Clara University

421 would like to thank the referees and editor for many helpful suggestions.

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