Orpheus in Boethius

Reading different works together is a productive undertaking. To investigate Boethius for an embedded Orphic myth begs the question; what are we looking for, what constitutes Orpheus and if he has a doctrine, what is it? It seems that the Orphic Myth is commentary on the human conundrum of transformation. We can read Orpheus' rebirth as the paradigmatic example of our modern condition of progress. The Myth of Orpheus, whose plot revolves around the return from Hades, suggests a reorientation towards deaths apparent permanence, such that transforming your mortal condition gains new agency. This agency in the face of death is congruent with our contemporary worldview that says: "Tomorrow we will be able to distinguish today's opinions from facts." Our scientific progressivism, however, complicates and confuses.

In chapter 12, Boethius conjures two examples that interestingly complicate our contemporary attempts to empower toward progress: First Lady Philosophy suggests the impossibility of unity without a steady individual; transformation does not leap across an untraceable divide, but rather it is precisely the continuity of our narrative that allows the possibility of transformation. But when we try to trace out the trajectory we are in "a labyrinth of arguments from which I cannot find my way out"

Does anybody know why, when Orphues looks back at Hell his wife is lost forever? What is the significance of that? Ive been having trouble with it and I cant figure it out.

Right, he goes down, persuades Proserpine & Co to let his wife Eurydice return to the living world with him, they set the condition that he can't look back at her until they are at the surface, but he does, right on the threshold of emerging into the light. I'm afraid that those were just kind of the terms of the deal, and the point is that fate is cruel. Or to amplify the point in Boethius' manner, he gave into his emotional/bodily longings and didn't follow the rules which his rational mind was aware of. But Boethius' interpretation is very much made to support his arguments, and it isn't indisputable.

Even though the turning back to look at wife thing was defined in his deal with persephone, i think mazzin is right to question what the siginificance of it was. It makes me wonder whether or not the shade was ever real or ever actually going to return to earth, or if persephone, as a higher being, knew the inevitable fate orphues was drawn to because it was that same fate that got him down into hell in the first place- one centered around his love for her. Eurydice seems lost from the start, the whole thing was in vain because death is a definite seperation.

In without colors the connection between Qwfqwf and Ayl is centered around his first recognition of her as something different in a world “always different yet almost the same”, it was this first instance of difference that made him distinguish her from the rest as something beautiful and something he loved. When he loses her Calvino emphasizes the paralysis of the loss- the world he is left with has no value because its first distinction and the foundation of comparison was lost with Ayl. This concept of loss is just as strong in Boethius’s myth where Orpheus’s manner of looking at the world, through song, loses its ability to soothe him when he loses Eurydice. The value of the song is lost to him “the measures that subdued all else/ could not assuage their lord.” It’s as if loss of love is the loss of a unifying notion that glues the world together. One of the orphic doctrines state that things are in unity and from this unity their differentiations fold out, much like the idea of a principle from which everything comes, in the Boethius this unity is the “good” and “God” – without it the soul can’t seem to differentiate.

In the Ovid the definite quality of Orpheus’s loss is inescapable, the first line that mentions Eurydice defines her state by: “she was gone”. It is this irretrievable reality that is found in Boethius and Calvino- the concept of a definite loss that seems to effect the souls most important function- orpheus’s singing and Qwfqwf’s vision. In Boethius’s version it is as if he is trying to make an example of the mistakes of silly men, but within this attempt the unanswered questions from Plato arise: how does love fit into the soul/body good/bad prison/prisoner paradigm? How can Socrates myth be enough when loss can leave you with a world without forms and without absolutes with which to compare, where you can just lie down and decide to be a tree?

Orpheus loses Eurydice because he looks down on the dead instead of up to the good- but the importance of the love/loss is emphasized so strongly throughout the poem that it seems futile to cast it aside as silly bodily want/need rather than an innate soul need.

why does calvino specify that the first thing qwfqwf falls in love with is Ayls eyes? its ironic that its her vision of the world is what separates them and what he ends up understanding in the end. i don't really know what to make of that detail. It seems significant...

Sara, you posted while I was writing my thing, so I didn't see your comments. See they talk about the same stuff as I did, I'll address a few of your things directly here.

My earlier response to Mazzin was kind of hasty, but by the end my point was exactly that the possible significance(s) of Eurydice's second death, and Orpheus' role in causing it, it exactly what we are trying to figure out.

I'm glad you agree with me on the failures of Boethius' attempt to incorporate the archetypal poet into a poem putting down poetry (in favor of philosophy).

Right, qwfqwf fell in love with her eyes before he even identified them as eyes, as part of a physical object of desire. The story is all about this alternative view, this perfect and unchanging world. Ayl is a metaphorical origin story for this innate impulse of the soul. I disagree with you, however, that after her irreversible loss, qwfqwf's world "has no value." He is hit pretty hard by sorrow, yes. But I think he will recover and celebrate again the natural world, the world of colors (though always tinged with melancholy and the sense of a now untouchable perfection). The whole metaphor of the non-perfect, non-eternal world as the world of colors I think makes it pretty clear that the world of colors still has a lot going for it. "The cold wall of gray stone" is not a constantly enduring substitute for the color world. I mean, really, do you want to lose colors?

To restate my answer to Mazzin: the original (that said, Ovid's is just one belated version of an old, old myth) leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Boethius' Philosophy gives us one explanation, and so far it seems that neither you, Sara, or I are convinced by it. It doesn't really seem right for her to be gone forever because Orpheus was a poor philosopher...See my bigger post.

Thanks Jack and Sara for your response.

I found trying to relate two poems to be a highly difficult task. The more I try to analyze each poem the more questions arise. Trying to figure out who all of these mythical characters are such as Ixion, Tityos, Tantalus and so on is a difficult task on its own. Each verse is imbedded with so much detail and every detail is no doubt highly important. For example in the Ovid poem it says that Eurydice, the bride, was walking with naiads and was then bitten by a snake. The naiads who I found out are spring gods, or fresh water gods are accompanying Eurydice right before she dies. Also right before she dies she is about to be married. These details of marriage and spring gods are no doubt very important to the meaning of the poem but I think it would take much further research to figure out why. I read one opinion which says that Eurydice was punished to death because she was seen dancing with these naiads during her wedding. Some versions of this story see Orpheus as a coward for not seeking death in order to be with his wife. In all stories of Orpheus music plays a substantial role in the narrative. Music soothes the monsters of hell, music brings shade to the green hill and attracts much nature. In Boethius's version music is used to lull the beats as well. This makes me wonder why is music the one thing which can persuade and soothe the creatures of the underworld. Is it because it is harmonious?

The Boethius poem ends with Orpheus gazing back at Eurydice, the Ovid poem continues on with Orpheus' life. I find this interesting because it becomes clear that each verion of the story has its own emphasis. Boethius is focused more on the good and wickedness. He writes about guilt and punishment but takes the side of the victim of punishment and guilt. Probably because he sees himself as a victim of these. The Ovid poem seems to me to be harsher and less forgiving of Orpheus. He was given a very rare pardon, one which never happens, all he had to do was follow a simple rule but he fails to do so and is punished for it. Boethius poem also says that Orpheus must not look back but he then says... " Yet who for lovers can prescribe? Love has its greater law" Boethius being a victim himself has more understanding for and remorse for those who have been punished, Ovid does not.

jack:
i really enjoy your explanations and ruminations. I still disagree with the idea that Qwfqwfs world is not lost at the loss of Ayl, only because i think the center of the story revolves around this reversal- he cant get enough of her or the colors, but when he chooses the colors and consequently loses her the colors themselves lose their value: "i realized, with grief and fear, that i had remained out here, that i would never again be able to escape those gilded and silvered gleams, those little clouds that turned pale blue to pink, those green leaves that yellowed every autumn, and that Ayl's perfect world was lost forever." - maybe i am just prone to think that this is a loss of everything because i grew up on Grimm's Fairy tales were shit always gets flipped on the protagonist that changes their position on things, but it seems to me that Calvino is emphasizing this change in Qwfqwf's attidue towards his beloved colored world.....i love your solutiuon for the eye-gazing love impulse.

It certainly is a huge loss, and the loss is certainly the subject of the story. But it should be remembered the experience of being with Ayl and the loss of that experience will together be the necessary mythic background for all future human celebrations of idealized perfection; the loss itself is part of poetic material, and is not negative in a one-dimensional way. On the last page of the story he feels that the color world has lost all value, as many humans often feel, but I think Calvino intentional goes over the top on his bitterness to show that it is only a passing depression (in the sense that it comes and goes in waves of strength, although he will never be entirely free of it). I don't think that his resentment of the clouds, his desperate search for solace in the stone wall, are presented as reasoned judgments or as a new permanent position. There is an element in his earlier exultant cries of "The sky is blue!" or "Whatever color is beautiful!" that is a permanent and continuing aspect of human creativity. Both the natural, changing world and the unreachable idealized world provide enduring material for man's creative urges; they both definitely still exist, celebration of colors has not gone extinct.

Although the Orpheus story in the poem is based on Ovid’s version, I think that what is emphasized in the poem is that through song, Orpheus was able to 1) Go into the underworld and 2) convince the gods to let him have Eurydice. Most of the song is about how his music soothed the monsters in hell: “The three-formed guardian by the gate was lulled by this new song. Perhaps the reason that the “ruler of the shades” allowed him to take Eurydice back was that he was impressed by the fact that Orpheus was able to go so deep into the underworld. It might have also been that he too was moved by the song. I don’t know what to make of that just yet.
Without Colors puts an emphasis on how Qfwfq chases Ayl and tries to convince her that color is beautiful but she doesn’t agree. The first instance we see is with the rock. Qfwfq shows her a shiny rock and states that it’s beautiful while Ayl denies it and show him an opaque rock that she thinks is beautiful. At the point in which we can draw the parallel between Boethius’ poem and the story is when Ayl see’s the colors and retreats into the opening in the earth which ends up closing and Qfwfq loses her forever just like Orpheus lost Eurydice.
However, I think it’s important to note that there is a major difference between the story and the poem. Ayl did not want to live in the world with colors so she chose to stay in the chasm. On the other hand, Orpheus lost Eurydice forever because he looked back. We don’t really know what Eurydice wanted but at least there was a possibility that they would be able to be together.

In reading “Without Colors”, the focus of the story, to me, always seemed to be on how the world was viewed. A big part of that had to do with color, but not all of it. Before Ayl was introduced, the focus was on nature itself: the temperature, the meteors, the act of hunting for things you couldn’t see. And then after Ayl was introduced, the focus was still on how the world was viewed, though more so on events that altered the known world (i.e. meteorites causing temporary colors, chasms splitting the earth, etc.). The overall theme seemed to be nature, because it was the thing that eventually split apart Ayl and Qfwfq in an Orpheus type way. It was nature that punished Qfwfq for lieing to Ayl, and trying to take her somewhere she didn’t belong.
I related this to the Boethius version of the Orpheus story through the fact that its focus was on how the Thracian poet chose to deal with life after his wife’s death. He could have dealt with the stages of grief that everyone does but instead he cried himself into song which then took him to his wife’s departed soul. Along the way it shows how he sees life, first through the nature he disrupted with his tears, then hell’s halls as he overcomes each obstacle. Both Qfwfq and the Thracian poet achieved what they set their minds to, Qfwfq to find Ayl and the poet to recover his wife’s life. And they both lost it to greed, wanting to keep for themselves what nature did not intend.

In looking at the way Orpheus is addressed in both “The Consolation of Philosophy” and “Phaedo,” one is able to see the emphasis on the importance of directing one’s mind to “the day above” (Boethius 70). The Orphic doctrine addressed in the Phaedo suggests, “The real thing, whether self-control or justice or courage, is in fact a kind of purification from all this kind of motivation, and wisdom itself is a sort of cleansing agent”—that when these traits are “sold for wisdom and purchased with it” they truly become self-control, justice, and courage. It is through this wisdom that one is able to ready the soul for death and fix the mind on “the day above” and “[live] the philosophic life in the right way.” The Orphic doctrine functions the same way in “The Consolation of Philosophy.” In the Boethius text, the philosopher is also rendered in the same place as Orpheus, having the ability to direct the mind to “the day above” or become “conquered” and “turn his eye/ Into hell’s cave below,/ [Forfeit] such merit as he won,/ By gazing on the dead” (Boethius 70). Each text also presents death as something that, if prepared for, merely becomes “the day above,” as if the soul that does not succumb to looking back will attain the best possible immortality.

The issue with both of these instances is the sheer arrogance of their claims. In the Phaedo, the rhetoric suggests that Orpheus is an idiot for looking back. The Boethius text is slightly less critical, but still completely condescending about Orpheus’s having looked back. The parallel between Orpheus’ looking back and the philosopher’s “gazing on the dead” or inability to live “the philosophic life in the right way” is clear. Yet, in their presentation, these examples do not address the complexity of Orpheus’s having looked back. Socrates’ composure in the face of his coming death and Boethius’s panic stricken prose do not address the fact that Orpheus is truly in the ethereal realm. The idea that the philosophy would transition seamlessly into this ethereal realm is not even considered. Socrates would not have looked back, but Boethius is so dumbstruck by the appearance of Lady Philosophy that it is easy to imagine his complete meltdown in seeing the apparition of a dead wife. I understand that both the Phaedo and the Boethius text are using the myth of Orpheus as an analogy for the philosopher preparing for “the day above,” but their adaptation of the myth is less effective as the philosopher’s “not gazing on the dead” differs entirely from Orpheus’ looking back on his dead wife.

I actually found both Boethius’ Orpheus poem to be similar in certain ways to Calvino’s “Without Colors” story. Both Boethius and Calvino emphasize the great lengths that Orpheus and Qwfqwf go through to get back their loves. Orpheus goes to Hades and has to charm a lot of people while Qwfqwf has to look all over the place for someone who blends into everything. Both Orpheus and Qwfqwf lose their women [I guess you can call Ayl female] because of some mistake on their part; Orpheus looks back and Qwfqwf refuses to understand, until the very end that his idea of beauty and happiness is not Ayl’s.
I also agree with Jack when he says that Ayl in “Without Colors” is different from Eurydice in Boethius’ poem. Although I don’t know, [I don’t know if anyone else knows either] if Eurydice actually wanted to leave Hades with Orpheus, I just assume [even though I know I shouldn’t assume things] that she wanted to leave with him. Whereas Ayl, seems more than happy with the way things are, without color and doesn’t want to go with Qwfqwf into the color. Qwfqwf loses Ayl, because she doesn’t want the same thing that he wants.

Good is presumably not of this earth, since he who can decipher the “bright source of good” is weighed down by its chains. “Weighing down” implies that there is a kind of shackle, which the earth is holding back, somehow. This almost suggests that “he” would make a vertical ascent if not for the earth. If he could slip the chains of earth, he is “blest” for his release.

The image of imprisonment returns in “Without Colors,” where the character confesses, “I was seeking a new world that was beyond the pallid patina that imprisoned everything” (54). And the death in both stories seemingly provokes an earthly movement. In Consolation, his tears had “forced woods to shift at speed; made streams to linger in their course’ caused hinds to show no fear,” and so on, as Ayl’s disappearance in “Without Colors” triggered changes where, “Trees of smoke-covered lava stretched out twisted branches” (55). In each story, the image appears hallucinatory.

In response to Mazzin--
I don't think that the Ovid and the Boethius differ that much on what happens to Orpheus following his mistake. Ovid's tale is more graphic (he goes outside and gets torn to shreds), but Boethius also ends with him in pieces:

"For Orpheus—woe is me!—
On his Eurydice—
Day's threshold all but won—
Looked, lost, and was undone!"

He looks back and that's the moment at which it's over for him. Whether he meets his end through decapitation or not, he is undone. This is interesting in the context of Book 5 and free will / foreknowledge. It seems clear to me that in the Boethius Hades knew Orpheus would turn back. Also, how much choice does Orpheus have in his actions, following his mistake? Once he looks back he is undone—therefore, he is wicked (Book 4). I suppose this does follow because looking back loses Eurydice and losing Eurydice is unhappiness and attaining unhappiness is impotence and impotence is evil?

To love somebody then seems wicked, as in Boethius:

"What law can lovers move?
A higher law is love!"

These two lines seem to suggest that he had no choice in looking back, and that anyone in love would make the same decision. Is love then a manacle one must break to attain happiness? This seems counter to various implications throughout Boethius regarding love&happiness, and also to the general idea that love causes happiness. Of course, cynicism probably applauds this interpretation.

The first and last stanzas implore the person reading this version of the Orpheus myth and to take heed. He or she is likely to be attempting to ‘discern/The bright source of good”.
Concerning the act of discerning: discerning is a human act (1.v.27) and is exempt from that inborn or instinctual submission of the will to God that things like the sun aren’t exempt from. If it is an act at all then the act of discerning forms may take place in conversation or by reading a book so long as the language used is ‘germane to the topics being discussed.’ The language posits itself as a vehicle for the application of a concept/method Reason, which through the deduction/adduction of Terms, themselves needing to be adduced/deduced in order to be clarified and productive of terms that clarify or reduce the subject of the previous terms, producing more terms for later acts of discernment. Discernment is a productive act that strives to bring within the sphere of discourse the partial description of an area of The formal order. It is an act that periodically manifests Divinity in its acolytes.

“…since all [created things]…surge by natural instinct towards the good, it is surely beyond doubt that they submit willingly to guidance, and that of their own accord they accede to the will of him who orders them, being compliant and submissive to their ruler.”
If Love among the Forms is the union of separate things in Love, it reproduces the movement of separate forms abiding by the Form of the Law of Forms. In the Consolation, what this means is that we should be reading into the Orpheus myth a lesson on what not to do. The condition which Hades’ has placed on Orpheus stands in for the conditions which God has placed on his forms, his creations, and the conditions conditioning the Order of his creations. Since Lady Philosophy and Boethius agree that it is not possible to oppose God in the first place his breaking the conditions set for him is folly.