You are thinking of Orpheus, Bob, the fabled poet & musician, who was a priest of both Apollo and Dionysus. With his lute, Orpheus could stay the gates of death, tame the wild beast, and animate the stones. (Or so they said.) He was also said to have invented the alphabet, and to have founded Dionysus' mystery cult.
The girl was Eurydice, his wife. Bitten by a poisonous snake, she dies, and descends to Hades. Orpheus goes after her, and Dis agrees to let him take Eurydice back to earth, if he promises not to look at her on the climb up. But at the very end, he does turn back to look, to see if she's made it -- and she disappears forever. Orpheus wanders the earth, disconsolate. And the maenads get so mad at him for not being willing to play that they tear him apart and throw all the pieces in the river. His head, reportedly, continues to sing of his grief for Eurydice as it floats downstream. (Clearly, Orpheus himself, in this story, becomes a stand-in for the fertility god.)
Joan |
