Orpheus, << AWR fee uhs or OHR fyoos >>, was a musician in Greek and Roman mythology. The music of his voice and lyre was so beautiful that animals, trees, and stones followed him, and rivers stopped flowing to listen. His mother was the muse Calliope and his father was either the mortal Oeagrus or the god Apollo.
Orpheus joined the Argonauts in their quest to capture the Golden Fleece. Later, he married Eurydice. After Eurydice died, he went to the underworld to bring her back. His music charmed Hades and Persephone, the rulers of the underworld, and they granted Eurydice permission to leave. But they warned Orpheus not to look back at her on the way up to the earth. He glanced back too soon and she disappeared. Orpheus angered some women of Thrace because he took no interest in them or in their worship of the god Dionysus, and they tore him to pieces.
