There was no place for such as Orpheus in
his ferry-boat. Those only who went, never to return, could find a
passage there. For seven long days and seven longer nights Orpheus
waited beside the river, hoping that Charon would relent, but at last
hope died, and he sought the depths of the forests of Thrace, where
trees and rocks and beasts and birds were all his friends.

He took his lyre again then and played:

"Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice."

Milton.

Day and night he stayed in the shadow of the woodlands, all the sorrow
of his heart expressing itself in the song of his lute. The fiercest
beasts of the forest crawled to his feet and looked up at him with
eyes full of pity. The song of the birds ceased, and when the wind
moaned through the trees they echoed his cry, "Eurydice! Eurydice!"

In the dawning hours it would seem to him that he saw her again,
flitting, a thing of mist and rising sun, across the dimness of the
woods. And when evening came and all things rested, and the night
called out the mystery of the forest, again he would see her. In the
long blue shadows of the trees she would stand--up the woodland paths
she walked, where her little feet fluttered the dry leaves as she
passed. Her face was white as a lily in the moonlight, and ever she
held out her arms to Orpheus:

"At that elm-vista's end I trace,
Dimly thy sad leave-taking face,
Eurydice! Eurydice!
The tremulous leaves repeat to me
Eurydice! Eurydice!"

Lowell.

[Illustration: SWIFTLY HE TURNED, AND FOUND HIS WIFE BEHIND HIM]

For Orpheus it was a good day when Jason, chief of the Argonauts,
sought him out to bid him come with the other heroes and aid in the
quest of the Golden Fleece.

"Have I not had enough of toil and of weary wandering far and wide,"
sighed Orpheus. "In vain is the skill of the voice which my goddess
mother gave me; in vain have I sung and laboured; in vain I went down
to the dead, and charmed all the kings of Hades, to win back Eurydice,
my bride. For I won her, my beloved, and lost her again the same day,
and wandered away in my madness even to Egypt and the Libyan sands,
and the isles of all the seas.... While I charmed in vain the hearts
of men, and the savage forest beasts, and the trees, and the lifeless
stones, with my magic harp and song, giving rest, but finding
none."[3]

But in the goo