Sir Orfeo is an anonymous

Anonymous work

Anonymous works are works, such as art or literature, that have an anonymous, undisclosed, or unknown creator or author. In the United States it is legally defined as "a work on the copies or phonorecords of which no natural person is identified as author."...

 Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

 narrative poem

Narrative poetry

Narrative poetry is poetry that has a plot. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex. It is usually nondramatic, with objective regular scheme and meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls and lays.Some narrative...

, retelling the story of Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

 as a king rescuing his wife from the fairy

Fairy

A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

 king.

History and Manuscripts

Dated to the late 13th or early 14th century, it represents a mixture of the Greek myth

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 of Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

 with Celtic mythology

Celtic mythology

Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...

 and folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 concerning fairies

Fairy

A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

, introduced into the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 culture via the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 Breton

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

 lais

Breton lai

A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short , rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-world Celtic motifs...

of poets like Marie de France

Marie de France

Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England...

. The Wooing of Etain bears particular resemblance to the romance and was a probable influence.

Sir Orfeo is preserved in three manuscripts: the oldest, Advocates 19.2.1, known as the Auchinleck MS.

Auchinleck manuscript

The Auchinleck Manuscript, NLS Adv. MS 19.2.1, currently forms part of the collection of the National Library of Scotland. It is an illuminated manuscript copied on parchment in the 14th century in London. The manuscript provides a glimpse of a time of considerable political tension in England...

 is dated at about 1330; Harley 3810, is from about the beginning of the fifteenth century; and Ashmole 61, compiled over the course of several years, the portion of the MS. containing Sir Orfeo dating around 1488. The beginning of the poem describes itself as a Breton lai

Breton lai

A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short , rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-world Celtic motifs...

, and says it is derived from a no longer extant text, the Lai d'Orphey.

The fragmentary Child Ballad 19 "King Orfeo" is closely related to this poem, the surviving text containing only portions of the known story.

Following J.R.R. Tolkien's death, his son Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...

 found an unpolished translation of Sir Orfeo and published it in edited form with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In the poem, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is completely green, from his clothes and hair to his...

and Pearl

Pearl (poem)

Pearl is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the "Pearl poet" or "Gawain poet", is generally assumed, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness or...

.

Synopsis

In the poem, Sir Orfeo, king of Thrace

Winchester

Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...

, loses his wife Heurodis (i.e. Eurydice

Eurydice

Eurydice in Greek mythology, was an oak nymph or one of the daughters of Apollo . She was the wife of Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, a satyr saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a venomous snake,...

) to the fairy king, who steals her away from under an ympe-tre (a tree propagated by grafting

Grafting

Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...

), probably an apple or cherry tree. Heurodis had visited the orchard the day before, accompanied by two maidens, to sleep beneath the shade of its branches, but when she had awoken from her midday nap, she was so distressed that they had to call for the help of knights to restrain her. In her sleep, she had been visited by the king of the Otherworld

Otherworld

Otherworld, or the Celtic Otherworld, is a concept in Celtic mythology that refers to the home of the deities or spirits, or a realm of the dead.Otherworld may also refer to:In film and television:...

, she claimed, who was intent upon taking her to his underworld

Underworld

The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...

 kingdom. Now, a day later, she is in the orchard again, as the king of the Otherworld has instructed her to be, and despite a posse of armed knights surrounding and protecting her, she vanishes away.

Orfeo, distraught by this, leaves his court and wanders alone in a forest. He has left his steward in charge of the kingdom and seems to have no intention of returning to his capital city of Winchester

Winchester

Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...

 (in southern England, the old capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex). Winchester was called Thrace in those days, we are assured. Sir Orfeo leaves instructions that when they learn of his death, they should convene a parliament and choose a new king.

Sir Orfeo wanders in the forest for many years, sleeping on the bare earth and living on berries and fruits in summer, roots and the bark of trees in winter, until after ten years, he sees Heurodis riding past in the company of a fairy host. She is riding with sixty ladies, with not a man among them, hawking by a river. He follows these ladies into a cliff and travels for three miles through the rock until he emerges into a fairy kingdom, a flat expanse of countryside presided over by a magnificent castle, built from gold and crystal and glass. He is allowed into the castle by the gatekeeper and looking all about, he sees, lying inside these castle walls, people who had been thought to be dead, but who were not:

"Than he gan bihold about al,

And seighe liggeand within the wal

Of folk that were thider y-brought

And thought dede, and nare nought."

Some were headless, others had been drowned or burned:

"Sum stode withouten hede...

And sum were in water adreynt,

And some with fire al forschreynt."

Amongst these bodies he sees his dear wife Heurodis, asleep again. Despite suffering a rebuke by the king for being the only person ever to have entered this castle without having been summoned, Sir Orfeo entertains the fairy king by playing his harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

 and the fairy king, pleased with Orfeo's music, offers him the chance to choose a reward: he chooses Heurodis. Despite initial protestations by the king, Sir Orfeo reminds him that he gave him his word and Sir Orfeo returns with Heurodis to Winchester:

"To Winchester he is y-come,

That was his owhen cité,

Ac no man knewe that it was he."

Sir Orfeo arrives in Winchester, his own city, but nobody knows who he is. He takes lodgings with a beggar and, leaving Heurodis safely there, travels into the city wearing the beggar's clothes, where he is insulted by many people for his unkempt looks. The steward, however, for the love of Sir Orfeo, invites this unknown musician into the castle to play his harp. The final action of the story is the testing of the steward's loyalty upon Sir Orfeo's return with Heurodis to reclaim his throne. Quickly, the harp is recognized and Sir Orfeo explains that he found it ten years ago beside the mutilated body of a man who had been eaten by a lion. Upon hearing this, the steward faints in distress and grief. The beggar then reveals to the court that it is Sir Orfeo himself who is speaking to them and when the steward recovers, he is assured by Sir Orfeo that, if he had been pleased to learn of his death, he would have had him thrown out of his kingdom! As it is, however, he will make him his heir. Heurodis is brought to the castle and all the people weep for joy that their king and queen are alive and well.

Commentary

While this is not the classical

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

 myth of Orpheus, the poet shows substantial ingenuity in merging the Orpheus of mythology, who tries and fails to obtain the return of his wife Eurydice from the underworld, with the traditional fairy motifs of the fairy raid or hunt, the fairies' otherworldly kingdom, their attempts to abduct mortals, and the magical

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

 transformations endured by those who are captured by them. These motifs are shared by both Sir Orfeo and later-collected versions of the ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 fairy-lore in such works as the ballads of Thomas the Rhymer

Thomas the Rhymer

Thomas Learmonth , better known as Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas, was a 13th century Scottish laird and reputed prophet from Earlston . He is also the protagonist of the ballad "Thomas the Rhymer"...

and Tam Lin

Tam Lin

Tam Lin is the hero of a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies...

.

Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

 is identified at the beginning of the poem as "the old name for Winchester

Winchester

Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...

", which effectively announces that the well-known Greek myth is to be transposed into a British context:

"This king sojournd in Traciens,

That was a cité of noble defens -

For Winchester was cleped tho

Traciens, withouten no."

The poem's unique innovation, in comparison to the Orpheus and Eurydice

Orpheus and Eurydice

Orpheus and Eurydice is a tale from Greek legend. Works making holistic use of this legend include:-Literature:* The Death of Eurydice episode which occurs in Book X of Metamorphoses by Ovid * Sir Orfeo, anonymous narrative poem Orpheus and Eurydice is a tale from Greek legend. Works making...

 myth, may be that the underworld is not a world of the dead, but rather a world of people who have been taken away when on the point of death. In "The Faery World of Sir Orfeo", Bruce Mitchell suggested that the passage was an interpolation. However, in a seminal article "The Dead and the Taken" D. Allen demonstrated that the theme of another world of people who are taken at the point of death (but who are not dead) is a well-established element in folklore, and thereby shows the complete folklorisation of the Orpheus story.

Similarity with "The Matter of Rome"

This treatment of elements from Greek mythology is similar to that of the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 literary cycle

Literature cycle

Literary cycles are groups of stories grouped around common figures, often based on mythical figures or loosely on historic ones. Cycles which deal with an entire country are sometimes referred to as matters...

 known as the Matter of Rome

Matter of Rome

According to the medieval poet Jean Bodel, the Matter of Rome was the literary cycle made up of Greek and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar...

, which was made up of Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

, focusing on military hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

es like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 - where the protagonists were anachronistically treated as knights of chivalry

Chivalry

Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...

, not much different from the heroes of the chansons de geste

Chanson de geste

The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...

.

Translations

The German-American poet Paul-Henri Campbell produced a German translation of Sir Orfeo, using a technique that interprets the text in terms of the performance practice of the late Middle Ages. Recognizing the differences between the languages and their historical transformations, Campbell lengthened the meter. In order to retain the compelling dramatic force of the piece, he substituted the antiquated couplet rhyme, which was a function of the recital practice rather than an aesthetic device, by a more flexible dramatic usage of rhyme.

External links

• Sir Orfeo, edited by Edward Eyre Hunt, Cambridge : Harvard Co-operative Society, 1909.
• Sir Orfeo, from The Middle English Breton Lays, edited by Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995.
• King Orfeo
• Translation of Sir Orfeo into Modern English
• Sir Orfeo, material including a recitation in Middle English by Professor Corey Olson of Washington College as part of his Faerie and Fantasy course, spring 2011