Nay,
not only beasts and trees, but stones themselves and even mountains,
felt in the hard heart of them the power of this sweet music. It is one
of the most perfect stories ever told--the precursor of the legends that
gathered round Francis of Assisi and many a later saint and artist. It
is the prophecy from the earliest days of that consummation of which
Isaiah was afterwards to sing and St. Paul to echo the song, when nature
herself would come to the perfect reconciliation for which she had been
groaning and travailing through all the years.
The second part of the story tells of the tragedy of love. Such a man as
Orpheus, if he be fortunate in his love, will love wonderfully, and
Eurydice is his worthy bride. Dying, bitten by a snake in the grass as
she flees from danger, she descends to Hades. But the surpassing love of
the sweet singer dares to enter that august shadow, not to drink the
Waters of Lethe only and to forget, but also to drink the waters of
Eunoe and to remember. His music charms the dead, and those who have the
power of death. Even the hard-hearted monarch of hell is moved for
Orpheus, who
"Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made hell grant what love did seek.
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