Finally, Orpheus and the loss of Eurydike. This strand of the Orphic weave has come more to the fore in modern times; it is perhaps the favorite way of imagining him: losing his beloved on their wedding day; he, winning an exceptional permission to descend into the netherworld to retrieve her, liberate her, from the halls of Hades and Queen Persephone, providing he meet one folkloric condition (that he not look back); his last moment hesitation, the glance over the shoulder to be sure she was following, and her slipping away and back into the shades, irretrievable—because of his, well, doubt? His distrust of her? Distrust of woman: a disobedient independent who belonged to nature rather than civilization? Or a careless, neglectful puer aeternus? Unconsciously such “slips” are intentional and not a mere slip of the hand. Or, was it her intention to remain not with him, giving him the slip? Perhaps, he was right to lose her, as many Medieval versions and moralizers would have it: she was a no-good woman to begin with! She belonged to the realm of darkness all along, which he suddenly recognizes as they emerge toward daylight.
Or did she deliberately make return to life impossible? “Did she will herself more deeply into death?” asks Beverley Zabriskie. “After being amidst the dead, how could she live among those who had not died?” [5] Apart, she nonetheless remains his eternal and constant bride, the handmaiden maintaining fidelity with death.