This is the story of Orpheus, a proud musician who lost his wife Eurydice to a snakebite and tried to rescue her from the Underworld. Within Virgil’s poem the tale is told by Proteus, a shape-shifting seer from the sea, to Aristaeus, a son of the god Apollo, who sought from him the reasons for his recent lack of good fortune. It transpires that Aristaeus had been lustily pursuing Eurydice through a forest when she stumbled upon the snake and died. Orpheus is allowed to enter the Underworld but can lead Eurydice free of it only if he resists the urge to look behind him to check she is still following him. In his poignant telling of the myth, Virgil focuses on the depth of Orpheus’ sorrow.

When Proteus seeking his accustomed cave

Strode from the billows: round him frolicking

The watery folk that people the waste sea

Sprinkled the bitter brine-dew far and wide.

Along the shore in scattered groups to feed

The sea-calves stretch them: while the seer himself,

Like herdsman on the hills when evening bids

The steers from pasture to their stall repair,

And the lambs’ bleating whets the listening wolves,

Sits midmost on the rock and tells his tale.

But Aristaeus, the foe within his clutch,

Scarce suffering him compose his aged limbs,

With a great cry leapt on him, and ere he rose

Forestalled him with the fetters; he natheless,

All unforgetful of his ancient craft,

Transforms himself to every wondrous thing,

Fire and a fearful beast, and flowing stream.

But when no trickery found a path for flight,

Baffled at length, to his own shape returned,

With human lips he spake, “Who bade thee, then,

So reckless in youth’s hardihood, affront

Our portals? or what wouldst thou hence?”—But he,

“Proteus, thou knowest, of thine own heart thou knowest;

For thee there is no cheating, but cease thou

To practise upon me: at heaven’s behest

I for my fainting fortunes hither come

An oracle to ask thee.” There he ceased.

Whereat the seer, by stubborn force constrained,

Shot forth the gray light of his gleaming eyes

Upon him, and with fiercely gnashing teeth

Unlocks his lips to spell the fates of heaven:

“Doubt not ’tis wrath divine that plagues thee thus,

Nor light the debt thou payest; ’tis Orpheus’ self,

Orpheus unhappy by no fault of his,

So fates prevent not, fans thy penal fires,

Yet madly raging for his ravished bride.

She in her haste to shun thy hot pursuit

Along the stream, saw not the coming death,

Where at her feet kept ward upon the bank

In the tall grass a monstrous water-snake.

But with their cries the Dryad-band her peers

Filled up the mountains to their proudest peaks:

Wailed for her fate the heights of Rhodope,

And tall Pangaea, and, beloved of Mars,

The land that bowed to Rhesus, Thrace no less

With Hebrus’ stream; and Orithyia wept,

Daughter of Acte old. But Orpheus’ self,