orpheus and merchant of venice and two gentlemen of verona

One of other Greek mythological figures to whom S makes reference in TG is Orpheus. Orpheus is a "magnet" figure in ancient Greek mythology, as stories of all kinds clung to him, but the most famous ones relate to his ability to charm nature by his music and beautiful words. Indeed, one version of one of the myths of his death (told in Ovid, Metamorphoses 11), has the Maenads, followers of Orpheus, try to stone him to death because he, the original pederast, left the love of women and older men for younger boys. However, Orpheus' music was so enchanting that even the rocks and branches, when thrown, refused to hit him. If the story Ariadne provides the image of a woman "ditched," the story of Orpheus lodges in our mind the thought of the most beautiful music in the world.

Orpheus in TG

S mentions Orpheus in a delightful exchange among the Duke, Proteus and Thurio in 3.2. Proteus, who loves Julia but now has designs on Silvia--who was beloved of his friend Valentine--has made sure that Valentine was bansihed by his turning the Duke against Valentine. Now Thurio, a fabulously rich man, wants the hand of Silvia. Not wanting to "tip off" the Duke and Thurio that he is, in fact, wild about Siliva, Proteus urges Thurio to compose some beatiful poetic ditties to win Silvia's affection because even though Silvia's love is "weeded" from Valentine, "It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio" (3.2.50). But, alas, Thurio doesn't seem up to the task. Indeed, the Duke, sensing that Proteus is deeply in love (but thinking him in love with Julia), asks him to approach Silvia with words of love on Thurio's behalf.

"For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
And (for your friend's sake) will be glad of you--
Where you may temper her by your persuasion
To hate young Valentine and love my friend," (3.2.62-65).

Perseus then tells them how to compose some heaven-bred poesy.

"Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands" (3.2.72-80).

These lines about Orpheus are among the most beautiful in the play. I love the first one--"For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews"--for it suggests that the very tendons of the poets, the cords that made up their bodies, the carriers of their creativity, were used to string Orpheus' lute. The strings of the lute were not simply cords or thin strips of hide; they were the very souls and innermost parts of the poets themselves. Thus, when the chords were struck it was as if the poets themselves were touched, and their beauteous lines flowed from the "golden" touch. The huge leviathans were the same ones known to Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern mythology as great sea creatures, threatening the order of Yahweh, God of Israel, by their resurgent power. But just as one of the Psalms (104) emphasizes God's glory by saying that he had formed Leviathan "to sport in it" (v. 26), so S also has Orpheus tame the leviathans of the sea, making them leave their traditional habitation to dance upon the sands.

It is almost as if Orpheus is a "Siren-like" figure for S, except that he draws listeners not to their deaths on the rocks below the singing Sirens but to a pure enjoyment of the music. One feature of the Orpheus myth, in fact, is that he played lute for Jason and the Argonauts and managed to dampen the appeal of the music of the Sirens by playing louder and more alluringly than they.

Orpheus Returns

Orpheus was one of the mythological figures to whom S returned later in another context. Perhaps taken by the notion of combined beauty of language and music, S refers to Orpheus again in the Merchant of Venice. The quotation is long, but again is beautiful. Lorenzo and Jessica are alone on a moonlit night, and he recounts the things that might have happened on such a night. Musicians enter to play. Jessica complains that she is never merry when she hears sweet music. Lorenzo responds:

"The reason is, your spirits are attentive;
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music," MoV 5.1.70-88.

Conclusion

Here the story of Orpheus is integrated into a context in which music is playing, one person expresses the way music saddens her and an explanation of music's effect on the soul is given. It changes nature. So the MoV says explicitly what TG was hinting at.

Let S encourage us to develop a store of beautiful and powerful stories in our imagination, for it takes the imagination years to play with stories before they can be meaningfully refracted to others. We, in the 21st century, have tended to abandon the power of the classical stories; S shows us that they have eternal power.

2021