It is
by no arbitrary decree that self-restraint has been imposed on love. In
this, as in all other things, a man must consent to lose his life in
order to find it; and those who will not accept the conditions, will be
visited by no melodramatic or violent catastrophe. Love which has broken
law will simply fade away and vanish.
The third part of the story is no less interesting and significant.
Maddened with this second loss, so irrevocable and yet due to so
avoidable a cause, Orpheus, in restless despair, wandered about the
lands. For him the nymphs had now no attractions, nor was there anything
in all the world but the thought of his half-regained Eurydice, now lost
for ever. His music indeed remained, nor did he cast away his lute; but
it was heard only in the most savage and lonely places. At length wild
Thracian women heard it, furious in the rites of Dionysus. They desired
him, but his heart was elsewhere, and, in the mad reaction of their
savage breasts, when he refused them they tore him limb from limb. He
was buried near the river Hebrus, and his head was thrown into the
stream.
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