Orpheus

Orpheus (OHR-fee-uhs), a poet. An impulsive and self-centered writer, he is abused by the need to understand truth and to convey his insights in verse. Easily irritated by his wife’s demands on his attention, he gives in to his passions, reflected to petty vindictiveness, jealousies, and anger. In listening intensely to the soundings of the prophetic Horse, he disregards the presence of his wife and induces within her the pain of rejection. This marital conflict begs for resolution, but through her attempts to vindicate these slights, Eurydice destroys the Horse and brings about, ironically and indirectly, her own death, resuscitation, and final death. By observing, and participating in, these actions, Orpheus comes to recognize the reality of pain that, characterizing the human situation, becomes the substance of poetry. Controlled by the passions of his temperament, he disregards the voice of reason and disobeys the directions that enable him to preserve Eurydice. Anger generated by Eurydice’s words compels him to direct his sight to his wife, who is immediately condemned to death. The Bacchantes assassinate Orpheus. Thus, Orpheus experiences and penetrates the nature of the suffering created by human passion and moral blindness.

Eurydice

Eurydice (yew-RIH-dih-see), Orpheus’ wife and a former member of the Bacchantes. As egoistical as her husband, she becomes envious of the Horse, which absorbs Orpheus’ time and energies. Submitting to her passions, she bickers; through her intrusions into Orpheus’ compulsive creative efforts, she induces frustration and subsequent outbursts of anger in her husband. As victimizer, she seeks revenge and consequent contentment through the killing of the Horse. As victim, she becomes a ploy of Aglaonice, who, as leader of the Bacchantes, hears Eurydice’s request to destroy the Horse but sacrifices her in a determination to destroy Orpheus.

The Horse

The Horse, the source of Orpheus’ inspiration. Through the transmission of the letters “MERDE,” the Horse conveys an acronym foretelling an event (“Madame Eurydice will return from Hell”), as well as a word whereby Orpheus insults the Bacchantes and brings about his own decapitation. In spite of the ambiguity of meaning, the letters tapped by the Horse present an abstraction to be converted, through dramatization, into the concreteness of human suffering. As agent of the dynamics of the nature of life, the Horse enables Orpheus the poet-seer to penetrate the pain that is the source and crux of the human situation to be expressed in verse.

Aglaonice

Aglaonice (ah-glay-OH-nih-see), the leader of the sorority of Bacchantes. She dislikes men and, like Orpheus and Eurydice, relinquishes reason to egoism and envy. Resentful of the marriage of her former Bacchante, Eurydice, she is obsessed by a determination to destroy Orpheus. In respecting Eurydice’s request to kill the Horse, she also manipulates Eurydice’s death and resuscitation. After Orpheus’ inadvertent glance at his wife, condemning her to death, Aglaonice justifies her need to inflict pain on Orpheus, which results in his decapitation by the Bacchantes.

Heurtebise

Heurtebise (hewrt-BIZ), a glazier. As an intermediary among the protagonists, he advances the dramatic action. After Orpheus’ shattering of a windowpane, he arrives to make repairs. In bringing the poisoned sugar to assassinate the Horse and a poisoned envelope that will send Eurydice to Hades for the first time, he acts as an agent of Aglaonice, but he also listens to Eurydice’s complaints and attempts to placate her. After Eurydice’s descent to the Underworld, he informs Orpheus of his wife’s death and, articulating the demands of reason and moderation, advises him, in vain, on the means to find and resuscitate her. As representative of reason, he becomes a victim of the passion generated by others: During the attacks of the Bacchantes on Orpheus, he plunges into the mirror that is the entrance to Hades.

Death

Death, a beautiful young woman appearing in a pink evening dress.

Azarael

Azarael and

Raphael

Raphael, assistants to Death.

The Commissioner of Police

The Commissioner of Police, who investigates Orpheus’ death and continues Orpheus’ search for truth embedded in earthly phenomena.