#mythology

princesssarisa:

wildefluorescent:

a-l-o-n-e-t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r:

meduseld:

sawasawako:

thinking about how orpheus turning to look back at eurydice isn’t a sign of mortal frailness but a sign of love

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

This is true no matter the version you’re reading.

1. Eurydice trips and Orpheus turns to help her because he loves her.

2. Orpheus cannot hear Eurydice behind him, and fearing that he’s been tricked, turns to make sure she’s there.

3. Orpheus makes it out of the Underworld, and so full of love and excitement to be with Eurydice, turns to embrace her, forgetting that they both need to be out of the Underworld.

No matter what happens in the story, Orpheus loses Eurydice because his love for her compels him to look.

Orpheus, I can forgive you, then,
There’s not a soul alive who wouldn’t have looked back

The Descent, by Tyler King

Don’t forget Gluck’s opera, where Eurydice doesn’t know Orpheus is forbidden to look back, Orpheus is also forbidden to tell her, she assumes he must not love her anymore, and Orpheus finally looks back to reassure her of his love because he can’t bear her anguish.

In that version in particular, but possibly in all retellings, a part of us wants Orpheus to look back, because his failure proves his love.

Hello! I was wondering if you ever did any posts on Amihan? I haven’t really found anything surrounding this deity :(

My Answer: (question was sent by submission)

So there wasn’t any precolonial deity called Amihan. Amihan is mentioned as an air deity who creates winds in a creation story mentioned in Francisco Demetrio’s essay, Creation Myths among the Early Filipinos. Demetrio states this creation story was in the Pavon manuscript, which along with the Povedano manuscript has already been proven as a hoax created by Jose E. Marco, someone who is well known for their forgeries in history and “lost manuscripts”, back in the 60s.

As for Amihan being the name of the bird in the creation story that pecked the bamboo reed that Si Kalak and Si Bayi (Malakas and Maganda in Tagalog) came out from I actually haven’t found a credible source that mentions this. In all the old texts that talk about this creation myth in the Bisayas, they never mention the name of the bird. The name was still being told on the internet when I first started looking into our mythologies back in 2011. But, I’ve never found where this started. It’s possible it’s just been spoken of through oral history, but as for historical records, I haven’t personally found anything.