The Roles of Love and Desire

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The roles of love and desire in Ovid’s version of “The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice” would have to be described as one of the few tales told. This tale was about Orpheus who married a woman named Eurydice, who he admired and loved so much. Just as said in Plato’s Symposium love is just a mirror image of yourself, so as in this tale they felt connected from the first time Eurydice had heard the voice of Orpheus and when Orpheus looked at how beautiful she was. Love in this story is one that starts off really good by falling in love at first sight and getting married, being happy with one another. On the day of their wedding Orpheus had played joyful songs because that was the type of man he was. Just as said in The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice “For as the bride, amid the Naiad train, Ran joyful, sporting o’er the flow’ry plain (Garth, 1 A.C.E). Then one day a man named Aristaeus pursued in Eurydice, who had got bitten by a viper and died instantly that day. This is where the love tends to go into the bad route because her husband was destroyed by the death of his one true love and since his wife died he decided to risk his life and go to the Underworld to revive his wife. As he traveled to the Underworld to revive her he had to walk in front of his wife and did not look back until they had reached the upper world. Just as Orpheus said in the tale “My wife alone I seek; for lov’d sake, These terrors I support, this journey take (Garth, 1 A.C.E).” Just as he was reaching, he decided to turn around to look at her face just like any loved one would do, since his wife Eurydice had not crossed yet, she vanished back to the Underworld. He said in the tale “One last farewell she spoke, which scarce he heard; So soon she drop’d so sudden dissapear’d (Garth, 1 A.C.E).” When Orpheus was killed by Maenads, his soul went down to the Underworld where he was reunited with his
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