Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book X, p. 120r, 'Orpheus and Euridice'..

Description:Stories for sources in Shakespeare.

The story of Orpheus, the poet and singer who tried to save his wife, the nymph Euridice, from death by charming the king of the underworld with his music, was in book ten of Ovid’s tales. Shakespeare drew on this for his song ‘Orpheus with his lute’, which consoles Queen Katharine in the play of Henry VIII. (3,1, lines 1-14).

The story of Orpheus and Euridice continues, with the last 20 lines of page 120r which describe the reaction in the underworld to the music of Orpheus, reading:

To tire on Titius growing heart the greedy Grype forbears
The shunning water Tantalus endeavoured not to drink:
And Danau's daughters' ceased to fill their tubs that have no brink.
Ixion's wheel stood still: and down sat Sisyphus upon
His rolling stone. Then first of all (so fame for truth hath gone)
The Furies being struck there with pity at his song
Did weep. And neither Pluto nor his Lady were so strong ... [X.50]
And hard of stomach to withhold his just petition long.
They called forth Eurydice who was as yet among
The newcome Ghosts, and limped of her wound. Her husband took
Her with condition that he should not back upon her look,
Until the time that he were past the bounds of Limbo quite:
Or else to lose his gift. They took a path that steep upright
Rose dark and full of foggy mist. And now they were within
A kenning of the upper earth, when Orpheus did begin
To doubt him lest she followed not, and through an eager love
Desirous for to see her he his eyes did backward move. ... [X.60]
Immediately she slipped back. He retching out his hands,
Desirous to bee caught and for to ketch her grasping stands.
But nothing save the slippery air (unhappy man) he caught…


Full title: Publius Ovidius Naso, The XV [15] bookes of P. Ovidius Naso, entituled Metamorphosis. Translated out of Latine into English meeter, by Arthur Golding, Imprinted at London by W. W[hite], 1603.