Alone in the netherworld to find a wife, a song dissolves the iron heart of the king of hades, but when he returns to the Yang Realm, he defaults on looking back and loses his lover. Orpheus's heroic tragedy has made countless poets of ancient and modern times sigh. The so-called "hero" is that his encounters are not as permanent and permanent as the gods, nor are they as trivial as mortals, but they are drifting between fate and prudence. But there are also many philosophers who do not buy Orpheus's account. Plato, the first person in the ancient Greek "doubtful poetry", sneered at the beloved son of Muscariope, saying that Orpheus was more like a coward, unwilling to kill himself quickly, reunited with his lover in Hades, but sneaked into the mansion without a word, and because of his weak will, he left alone. "Losing the true realm of ghosts, the phantom kiss stinks", and eventually died at the hands of the Thracian woman, even with anger, in order not to reincarnate as a woman, I would rather be a swan.
Titian (1490–1576) famous work Orpheus and Eurydice, the same painting scroll across time and space shows the grand narrative of Eurydice poisoned to death, orpheus traveling thousands of miles to the underworld (c. 1508)
The Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) depicts Orpheus persuading the Pluto couple to take a Eurydice carving from the underworld (1636–1638)
Danish painter Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein-Stub (1783–1816) depicts Orpheus turning around and losing Eurydice (1806)
French neoclassical painter Michel Martin Drolling depicts the loss of Eurydice after Orpheus turns around (1820)
As for why Orpheus turned around, modern interpretations are mixed, and Zang is different. In the film Portrait d'unejeune fille en feu, the aristocratic maiden Eloise, who vaguely reveals the personality of the twelfth-century philosopher Eloys, tells this myth by the fire, and the maid Sophie, who is as good as Sophie in Rousseau's Emile, is surprised and thinks that Orpheus's move is "for no reason." After all, according to the "rational choice theory", whether or not Eurydice's ghost is present or not, if it is not in vain, it will cause her to "suddenly move with her soul", which is a stupid thing that is detrimental and unprofitable. But the painter Marianne, who symbolized freedom and liberation, was deeply influenced by Pascal's "rational ignorance of the mind", and believed that Orpheus had given up the "choice of lover" and made the "poet's choice", preferring to leave a moment of beauty rather than return to chai rice oil and salt. Eventually, Eloise expressed her "radical" point of view: it must have been Eurydice who asked Orpheus to turn around—that sex should fall on women. At the end of the play, Eloise stops Marianne, who has run away with a broken heart, and asks her to turn around one last time: this echo is not wonderful. However, after Orpheus and Eurydice were reunited, the reason why they escaped from the underworld must be to pursue spring back to the earth, not to fall into hell forever. Therefore, the "deliberate turning theory" steals the concept. "Self-destruction" may circumvent "selective existence," but it is not necessarily true liberation.
In the French symbolist film Portrait of a Burning Woman, the painter Marianne turns around like Orpheus and faintly sees the image of Eloise
In contrast, the musical "Hadestown" does not stick to personal choices, but focuses on social criticism, and also rehabilitates Orpheus. The Yin Division of the Earth, the Nether Realm, becomes a field of economic exploitation and social alienation in this musical. The human world is experiencing climate change and economic depression, and the king of Pluto advised: As long as you join the underworld factory, there is no risk of freezing. Eurydice was tempted and signed a pact with the devil. She mournfully sang, "Orpheus, my heart belongs to you, once upon a time and from now on." But I couldn't ignore it, my hunger was rutting. This weak woman is caught up in a rumbling whistle into a functioning capital system, and should we condescendingly blame her for not starving to death in the "golden world of virtue"? No. Destiny sings, "Come on, blame it!" Talk about benevolence, righteousness, morality, and deep sins. "Are you her, wouldn't you do that?" When you're full of wine and food, you can of course stick to your own principles. At this point, we can't help but think of Mr. Rivers, the heinous "gentleman" of Fingersmith, when he heard Maud condemn the poor people of Rand Street (Dickens's hometown) as "despicable", he violently dragged her out of the yard, pointed at the ruins and roared: "This is 'despicable': poverty!" ”
Poster for the musical "Underworld"
Stills from the musical "Underworld"
Haruka's soul fell into the cave of fire, and Orpheus hiked to hell and touched thousands of ghosts with songs. He also experienced a brief mental crisis. I heard that nothing will change: "Singing is futile, no matter how pitiful." He asked himself: "Being suppressed, betrayed, and then let the family tell himself: Nothing will change?" Always? Since you know the direction of turbulence, "why do you still go against the norm... Why do you still swim against the current? "Why should I be drenched in water and sweaty?" If it is doomed to futility, if the injustice of the existing system is a historical necessity, "why fight?" But he finally threw himself into the struggle, and his revolutionary song warmed the cold soul of the underground government.
And the Pluto king in "The Underworld" is not only a large industrial capitalist who oppresses labor, but also a victim of the alienation of social relations. Indeed, he complained unkindly about the lower classes for the rich: "You give them a piece, but they desire to be dissatisfied; you give them a stitch, and they will tear down the whole wall." But he also realized the dryness of his spiritual world, and even the subversion of political oppression by art: "If you listen with your ears, the kingdom will 'fall like a tower'... A song of subjugation. "What about Pluto himself?" In the underworld, a rigid world that has lost its natural sociality, he and his former lover Persephone are also in the same bed and dream, and gradually drift apart. Orpheus, on the other hand, pierces the walls of the underworld and makes a big fuss like Sun Wukong, but instead of "wheeling the stick", he "sings". Music touches the consciousness of humanity, and art inspires the political imagination: what alternative is there to live in addition to the humility of the present? The penetrating power of this art breaks the walls of the underworld—not the walls that have ears, but the "walls have ears"—and also breaks the naturalization that most oppressed people have internalized: in the zombie world, they have become accustomed to madness, but now they are beginning to doubt. Pluto was prescient. When people begin to wonder – is there anything else possible than to maintain the status quo? Must it be so, or is there something else to be desired? Can I pursue? The fundamental logic of the prefectural government has been subverted. But alienation spreads throughout the class, not just the intuitively oppressed side. The capitalists have long ceased to dominate the workers with their whips, but both the workers and the capitalists are at the same time subject to capital. The Pluto King ostensibly dominates the Dungeon, but in fact is dominated by this suffocating space. Listening to Orpheus's song, Pluto himself was liberated in art. He and Persephone rekindled their love and danced.
But the underworld order cannot be changed overnight, and economic interests are entrenched, even as the system of authority, which is entangled with these incentive structures, is crumbling. Although the root of Pluto's ear is soft and compassionate to all sentient beings, it is difficult to cut off his heart pulse after all. As an elderly and successful person, he is not willing to take risks, the "old state" is not willing to "restore the new", and the products of the old system will not be revolutionary. Finally, the practitioner of organizational economics, who had been circling with the workers for many years, decided that this time it would still be a contract to resolve the contradictions: Orpheus could lead the coolies out of the dungeons— but as soon as he looked back, he would abandon his achievements, and the alienation relations that could only be improved but could not be overthrown would become "eternal, iron, great laws." In Greek mythology, Orpheus could not hear and see all the way, and finally the doubts gradually arose, and finally he took care of himself. However, in the musical "Underworld", Orpheus is a "poor child" who lacks the aura of the Son of Music, and from the first step of the journey, he begins to doubt himself: Who am I? What virtue can I have to be a vanguard party and lead the people to liberation? How can revolutionary potential be so lightly developed? How can the old forces give up? How can a utopia that is readily available be realized in us? Finally, in the voice of the revolutionaries doubting the revolution, he turned around and the revolution was declared defeated.
The messenger Hermes appeared and said leisurely: "This is an old ballad, this is a sad ballad... But we still chant; we know how it ends, but we still sing it again. What if the ending is no longer the same next time? The same narrator goes back to history, this passage is not as grand and bleak as the narrator of the musical "Notre Dame de Paris" recalling the "cathedral era", but it returns to the everyday life idyllicly. Knowing that the hero is sad and sad, this is the heroism of the common people. Orpheus's dedication is, "Whatever the current situation, let you see what the world can be like." The messenger of the gods asked the audience, "Can you see?" Can you hear me? The train between Helltown and Utopia, "But is it coming?" But coming here? At this time, the lights and music of the city breath slowly recovered, the audience seemed to have experienced a long time, the story had accumulated dust, and the cracks in the soul seemed to have healed. At the end of orfeu Negro, a Brazilian film based also on the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice, the two children believe that offir's guitar evokes the sun every morning. They picked up the guitar and bounced it for the sun to rise again. A girl picked a flower and the three of them danced. This is about the same thing. The hero has fallen, and the song has returned to ordinary people's homes. As persephone, the mother of the underworld, said: Even if the human world should indeed die, after that, the earth is reborn and the sun still rises.
Poster for the classic movie Orpheus Noir
The lyrics of "Underworld" are sometimes discussable, and the metaphors are sometimes inconsistent, but its social criticism is rare, if not unique, among many Broadway films. "Fiddler on the Roof" tells the story of the Jewish poor who, despite their bullying, relentlessly pursue humanity, and Miss Saigon celebrates the humanity of ordinary women who act against the tragedies of the times with great willpower. "The Underworld" criticizes a social system that is insensitive but unconscious, and seems to solve the problem of food and clothing but actually erodes human nature, and it praises not the weak-willed and ineffective young man, but the courage to re-imagine the world. In the first ten years of the underworld, there was little attention. It was not until after the re-choreography, in the eventful autumn of 2016, that it debuted on Broadway, and it lasted for a long time, winning eight Tony Awards in one fell swoop, in which the lead and auxiliary factors are intertwined, but the contemporary American political context is indispensable. The last song of the first act of "Underworld", "Why We Built a Wall", happens to satirize President Trump's slogan of "building a wall" on the Mexican border, and the jazz music that runs through the play is just right to represent the music culture of African Americans. But these elements of immigration policy and ethnic culture are undoubtedly the simplest, shallowest, and most visible insights of The Underworld. Orpheus failed, and countless changes throughout history have collapsed violently, but there is still a rough and dark road from Hell City to Utopia. How do we go along this road? At the end of the Critique of the Gotha Programme, the ill Marx meaningfully borrows a Catholic prayer, "Dixi et salvavi animam meam" (I have spoken it, I have saved my soul). Recalling Orpheus, or, in other words, as Orpheus, we can roughly say: "cecinimus et salvavimus animas meas" (we have sung and have saved our souls).