Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Sacrifice Unapreciated

Orpheus and Eurydice are another couple shown to us in Metamorphoses. Instead of focusing on the characters it focuses more on the actions each one assumes toward each other. By taking his journey down to the Underworld Orpheus proves how love haunts you even after death separates you. Instead of moving on and continuing with his life, he makes a journey to restore what made him truly happy in life. Orpheus uses love as his tool in the Underworld to make an impression on the gods.

As Orpheus speaks he uses rhetoric to make his point to Hades. When he talks about how he knows that all beings come to the Underworld in the end and how he knows Eurydice will be a citizen, he shows logos. His logic showing that he knows this proves that he has given thought and time into his speech. He also talks about love uniting Hades and his wife representing it in a pathos way that causes emotion in his listeners.

Eurydice doesn't say much during the scene but I am confused by why she forgot at the end who Orpheus was. We got both sides of the story as Orpheus narrated:"They had to be behind him, but their steps were ominously soft. If only he could turn around just once."But when they mention Eurydice's part, they speak of how she was indifferent to all that was happening. Then what I found troubling is that she didn't recognized him, the guy that had risked everything for her, and when the moment came to part forever; "her steps constricted by the trailing gravelclothes, uncertain, gentle, and without impatience." as if the journey was worth nothing.

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