Lost in Translation 云天译斋: Death of Orpheus 俄尔甫斯之死

Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyreby Gustave Moreau (1865)

Act V
THESEUS

[Reads]
'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'

"The Thracian singer" is no other than Orpheus who traveled to the underworld to look for his beloved Eurydice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus

Death

Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre by Gustave Moreau (1865)
According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus's lost play Bassarids, Orpheus at the end of his life disdained the worship of all gods save the sun, whom he called Apollo. One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion[43] to salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to shreds by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron (Dionysus) and buried in Pieria.[14] Here his death is analogous with the death of Pentheus. For this reason it is sometimes speculated that the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or even an incarnation of Dionysus himself,[44] due to their many parallels, such as their similar journeys into Hades and identical deaths (in the case of Dionysus Zagreus [45]). A view supported by the conjectured Thracian belief that their kings were regarded as the incarnations of Dionysus [46] which would have included King Oeagrus, and his heir Orpheus, as well as the foundation or reform of the Dionysian Mysteries by Orpheus. But this remains controversial. Pausanias writes that Orpheus was buried in Dion and that he met his death there.[47] He writes that the river Helicon sank underground when the women that killed Orpheus tried to wash off their blood-stained hands in its waters.[48]

Ovid recounts that Orpheus...

had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his love to young boys, and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering, this side of manhood.[49]

Death of Orpheus, by Dürer (1494)
Feeling spurned by Orpheus for taking only male lovers, the Ciconian women, followers of Dionysus,[50] first threw sticks and stones at him as he played, but his music was so beautiful even the rocks and branches refused to hit him. Enraged, the women tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies.[51] In Albrecht Dürer's drawing of Orpheus's death, based on an original, now lost, by Andrea Mantegna, a ribbon high in the tree above him is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran ("Orpheus, the first pederast").[52]

His head and lyre, still singing mournful songs, floated down the swift Hebrus to the Mediterranean shore. There, the winds and waves carried them on to the Lesbos[53] shore, where the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa;[54] there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo.[55] In addition to the people of Lesbos, Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia consulted the oracle, and his reputation spread as far as Babylon.[56]

Cave of Orpheus's oracle in Antissa, Lesbos
The lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the stars. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Leibethra[57] below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. After the river Sys flooded[58] Leibethra, the Macedonians took his bones to Dion. Orpheus's soul returned to the underworld where he was reunited at last with his beloved Eurydice.