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Part I — OriginOn the top of Mount Olympus, there was a laurel tree, which was visited by a man almost everyday. The man took care of the tree as though it was his wife, sprinkling its root with the fresh water that he carried up from the mount’s foot.
Breeze flew through the tree’s leaves, causing some rustling sound as though the tree was trying to say something to thank the man. The tree had been there for only a few months, about as tall as the man, and its leaves were so glossy and thick like the hair of a maid.
The man’s name was Apollo (who’s generally known as God of the Sun at present day), and the laurel tree was the incarnation of his dearest lover. Apollo had more than half a dozen lovers in his life, but this woman was the one he loved most, whose name was Daphne.
Daphne and Apollo had some great time together. As a Goddess, Daphne had sworn to remain a virgin her whole life, but Apollo’s charm was just too strong for her to resist… Daphne’s dad, Peneus, who was the river god, never liked Apollo and decided to punish him for what he did with Daphne, but Daphne loved the man so much that she entreated her dad to forgive Apollo, willing to take all the punishment herself. Her dad accepted, and transformed her into a laurel tree with her consent…
Apollo came to visit the tree almost everyday. After getting done watering the tree, he usually went on to spend some leisure time with the tree, leaning at it and singing some of her favorite love songs. The tree seemed to have something to say, but couldn’t say anything, she was always quiet like the water in the Aegean Sea except for the leaves’ rustling sounds when there was a breeze passing by, until that one day…
Apollo came to visit his loved one as usual, but as he walked close, he heard something unusual. It sounded like a baby’s cry, he looked towards the sound and he was surprised, there was actually a newborn baby on the tree. He picked the baby from the tree and held her carefully in his arms. It was a baby girl, with dirty blonde hair and a pair of eyes in metallic-blue, the crying sound was like squeezed from between her full lips, she stopped crying shortly afterwards, and then gave Apollo a big smile as if she knew whom the man was. She probably didn’t know, but the man surely did…
Apollo decided to adopt that girl, and gave her all the care he could afford. The girl had 4 half-brothers, who were all Apollo’s children that he had with other women. To her siblings as well as everyone else, however, she was just an “adopted” daughter of Apollo, but Apollo knew the true story. It was a secret that only Apollo himself knew.
He named the girl “Eurydice”. She was his only daughter and she was such a lovely girl. She was very enthusiastic about singing, pretty much like Daphne, and her voice was probably the most pleasant music in the universe. Meanwhile, Orpheus, one of Apollo’s four sons, also liked singing and he sang pretty well, which was probably the reason why Orpheus became Eurydice’s best friend among her four brothers. Common interest cultivated a close friendship between the two youngsters, but Apollo didn’t know the friendship would further evolve, into something that he and his dad Zeus could never accept.
Eurydice and Orpheus were innocent though, they didn’t see any problem with having something more than just friendship between each other, because they were not at all blood related, as they knew.
What Apollo should’ve been concerned about was finally about to come true. The two youngsters were engaged and about to get married soon. Apollo turned to his dad Zeus for advice, after Zeus promising to keep the secret for him, he told his dad the whole story.
Zeus was enraged, and decided to do everything in his power to separate the couple apart.
Here came their scheduled wedding day, Eurydice was dancing through the meadow with Orpheus playing joyful songs to accompany her. Suddenly, a satyr came out of nowhere and prowled towards Eurydice. She was so shocked and frightened for a moment, and then fled away as fast as she could. To make things worse, there was a viper (a venomous snake) waiting right in her way, which bite her in the foot as she stepped on it by mistake. There was no antidote to this venom, and she was killed.
Orpheus, with a broken heart, played and sang a dirge which was so mournful that all the nymphs and deities wept and advised him to travel down to the “Underworld” to retrieve her, which he acceded.
He arrived in the “underworld” and found Hades and Persephone who were the Gods in charge of this world. His song and music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone and made them weep. The “underworld” gods were moved, and agreed to let him to take her back to the world of the living, but they attached a condition, which was that he must walk in front of her and not look back until both had reached the upper world.
He had doubts if she was really there following him, but he managed to keep his head straight all the way up to the portal of the “upper world”. He walked into the door, and couldn’t wait any longer to turn his head around to check if Eurydice was really there, having forgotten that the condition was “BOTH of them had reached the upper world”. He had reached the upper world, but Eurydice still had one foot outside of the door… His efforts all fell short as Eurydice vanished, nowhere to be found.
Orpheus lived in deep remorse after the death, or the disappearance of his loved one, but the grief wouldn’t last for too long… because he would also be dead shortly afterwards.
Dionysus, another son of Zeus, half-brother of Apollo, sent a henchman to the depressed Orpheus and took his life. Neither Apollo nor Zeus was aware of the connection between the murder of Orpheus and his uncle, Dionysus.
But to Orpheus himself, the death of his bride upset him more than his own. He thought that his own death could extricate himself from the relentless deep grief, but he was wrong. He couldn’t live without Eurydice, nor could he die without her. Therefore he went to the “underworld” again expecting to find Eurydice there, but this time he was also a soul.
He spent quite some time looking for her in the “underworld”. He searched every cranny and nook, but only to disappoint himself time after time. Finally, he decided to give up. He set up his mind to return home for the last time to say goodbye to his dad and his brothers, then he would eternally reside in the “underworld” as every dead one should.
As he arrived at home, he was shocked and surprised at what he saw, and the surprise soon converted into enormous pleasure and happiness. Tears spilled out of his eyes and he was too excited to say anything, because he saw the beautiful girl who was the most important person to both his life and afterlife, standing right there, alive.
It was a huge scam, Zeus was the man behind the whole thing, and he was the only one who had such power…
Eurydice had never been killed. Even Zeus was not cruel enough to kill his own granddaughter, especially when the girl was so lovely and beautiful. The viper’s bite only brought her into some kind of catatonic and unconscious state. Zeus intended to deceive Orpheus into believing that Eurydice was truly dead, and he thought that time would gradually dilute his love for Eurydice and eventually make him forget about her. But before that, he would keep her in a secret and safe place.
As Orpheus was murdered, there was no need to keep her there anymore. Zeus released her on Apollo’s request, but he thought that it was Eurydice’s songs and her sweet voice that seduced Orpheus somehow, intentionally or not, so he ordered a punishment on Eurydice…
Eurydice was made to drink a big cup of hot pepper soup, which severely damaged her throat. She could still talk and sing, but everything from her mouth was in a clunk-like husky voice from then on.
She learned about the death of Orpheus, she was mournful and had also been living in deep grief, until that one day when Orpheus returned home.
It was a heart-warming reunion of the two youngsters who loved each other so hard, but unfortunately, the news soon flew into Zeus’s ears. He broke up the couple abruptly and ordered one more punishment on the poor girl, much harsher than last time...
He transformed Eurydice into a baby, just like how she was when Apollo first discovered her on the laurel tree, and mopped off all her memories. Zeus commanded that she be dumped to the world of mortals, which equaled an official dismissal from the family of Gods. But to everyone else except Zeus and Apollo, she was probably just sent back to where she came from because she was only a foster child of Apollo’s, after all.
With Zeus’s order, a nymph (an angel) carried the infant and set out on a trip to the earth. Not too long after they set off, Zeus also started to think that the punishment on Eurydice might be too harsh, so he allowed Orpheus to stay with his dad in the “upper world” rather than return to the “under world”. But Orpheus didn’t want to stay in either world. He only wanted to be wherever Eurydice was, so he followed the nymph to the earth.
But he was left so far behind he could only see the vague direction in which she was moving. The nymph reached her destination when Orpheus still had quite a long distance to go. He saw the nymph’s landing position, and he headed towards that position but when he landed on earth himself, the nymph was already gone.
Orpheus was pretty sure that the girl must have been given to a local family, within 50 miles of the landing spot. But the area was still large enough, with countless skyscrapers which indicated the incredible population density of this city. He didn’t know how long it would take before he could find her, even if he could. But he chose to stay there, because he could at least stay in the same city where she was, even if he could never find her.
But he couldn’t stay there for too long in the form of a soul, he had to lodge in a human’s body. He could influence the human he lodged himself in, including his interest and thoughts, but could not control any part of his body or mind. And he had to be careful with his selection because once he lodged into a human’s body, he couldn’t get out of it until when the human was about to die.
It’s always much easier to get into someone than get out of it, I think. When you want to fall in love for someone you can possibly get it done in hours, or even in minutes. It’s like you’re driving towards some place of interest that you’ve always wanted to tour. You get green lights all the way to your destination, and you spend a good day touring there. But when you feel tired at the end of the day and want to go home, you find every road jammed with numerous cars, and you’re stuck in there. No matter how beautiful the place is, it’s not your home and will never be.
