Confusion aside, continuing on. One (the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice) was a tragedy, the current reading (the tale of Sir Orfeo) ends on a much more happy note. In one the love is lost and in the other the love is reacquired and rekindled.
The ending, where the king reappeared in "disguise" and made himself known by a skill in which he could do best (in this case his music playing), made me think of nothing but Odysseus from The Odyssey. He had numerous suitors that wished to claim his wife, but in order to do so, they had to string his bow and, with it, shoot an arrow very accurately. None of the suitors were capable of accomplishing this task... but along came Odysseus, disguised as an old man (in our current story Sir Orfeo is disguised as a ragged minstrel) strung his bow and, with it, not only did he shoot the very accurate shot correctly, but also slaughtered all the suitors who had been ransacking his household. Unfortunately (at least from my messed up point of view), Sir Orfeo had no one to slay, as once his identity was discovered, he and his wife were warmly welcomed back and reseated upon the throne.
I'm commenting here because one of my group members hasn't posted.
ReplyDeleteI *definitely* saw similarities between the ending of this tale and *The Odyssey,* and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought so! I think that's why I both appreciated and disliked the way Orfeo handles his homecoming. It's great that he knows his steward is loyal, but the test seems a bit harsh.
Anyway, I don't think we need a tremendous amount of background on *The Odyssey* to appreciate this tale because the similarities are only at the end. After all, Homer's epic is *epic,* a massive book that has little to do with Odysseus' homecoming. Also important is that Orfeo's test and Odysseus' test are different. Orfeo tests his steward. Odysseus *is tested* both through the bow and through his wife's command regarding their bed. In one the king administers the test, and in the other, he is the subject of the test.
Still, it's a good analogy, and the classical comparison could probably spawn another blog post or five!
I have to disagree and say I could totally see a link between Orfeo and Orpheus. I think if you made a brief summary of both they would read, "A loved one is taken from a powerful being and the lover must rescue her." The difference, like you pointed out, was that one of the ends was happier.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed that Odyssey moment when the king comes back as a minstrel. I mean, who doesn't want to disappear from the world and be a nameless musician? (sarcasm! I'm probably the only one who thinks that!) Such a shame he didn't continue with the music gig though...
I both agree and disagree with your point - I definitely saw similarities between Orfeo and Orpheus while reading, however, I also felt like the similarities were not particularly interesting or as strong as I was expecting them to be.
ReplyDeleteHaving been specifically asked to familiarize myself with the Orpheus story (which I only knew vaguely) before reading Orfeo, I was anticipating two stories that were very similar and for those similarities to draw my attention. While reading though, I found myself primarily paying attention to the ways in which the Orfeo story deviated from its predecessor and this took me a bit by surprise. I hadn't expected there to be as many deviations as there were and as such I became more intrigued by them as opposed to the similarities.
To answer your question though, having prior knowledge of the story of Odysseus (as well as Orpheus) would have certainly helped to add to my reading of Orfeo. I'm not very familiar with Odysseus, so the closing scene of Orfeo would have made more sense or caught more of my interest I had been able to recognize the similarities to Homer's epic.
I have to admit that I have not read The Odyssey, and if I have, then I do not remember it. I have no idea how I made it through high school without reading it, but oh well. However, I have read Orpheus and Eurydice and I have to disagree with you when you said that we didn’t really have to read it before we read Sir Orfeo. I don’t know about anyone else, but it helped me understand some of the scenes better than I would have if I had just read Sir Orfeo by itself. One such scene was the underworld. When I first read that I thought it was just a land where no one died since, in my head, no one alive could live in the underworld. But with the other story in mind, I was able to figure out that they did actually mean that to be the underworld.
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