The story of Eurydice

One of the great things about sitting down and downloading all my favourite CDs into my massively massive 300GB Seagate external hard disk is that in the morning when I'm getting ready for work and iTunes does its magic thing of picking up the next song among thousands, something will suddenly jump out at you. An undiscovered gem which lay lost for years among the thousands of CDs you own, that finally resonates because the time has finally come for you to notice its parallels to your own life.

And so thanks to my computer, I now know that in Greek mythology, Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus. One day, a snake bit her and she died. Orpheus missed her so much that he travelled to the underworld, where he played such sad songs that it softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, and they allowed Eurydice to return to the land of the living.

The only condition was that he was to have faith in the Promise, and had to walk in front of her all the time, never looking back until they reached the Upper World. But because he loved her too much, he got worried, and wanted to be sure that she was still with him. So he turned back to look at her, and she vanished.

All the things we'd hoped
Would always keep us close
Stand between us now, as fences
The letters that we wrote
Have all gone up in smoke
And now you're just too far to listen in
When all but hope is lost
You believe at any cost
In things that make the living lighter
And when the shadows fall
The promise of it all
Is lying in the bed beside her.

"Promise (The Cult of Eurydice)", David Sylvian (1987)