ORPHEUS: Invisible Ivory Music
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. ~ John Keats
Herus Pamphilius claimed that Orpheus’s drifting soul, destined to be incarnated anew in some other physical form after he had died, elected to be born a swan so that he would not come out of a woman, loathing all women due to their deadly effect on him. ~ Plato, The Republic, Book 10
When Orpheus discovered that his soul
Must travel, travel, travel to a new
Birth, he preferred to migrate in that bowl
That is a cob’s deep nature. Swirling blue
Of river waters would be well to float
Him through to immortality. If hatched
Of whitest white, his arcing, curving throat
Could sing his longing unheard songs unmatched
In silent beauty. Most of all he wished
To be unborn of woman, thinking breath
That they might give him would be always fished
Up from the dregs of mud-like jealous death.
He did not want to be a woman’s gift
Again. He wanted maleness left adrift.
