| The story of Orpheus has provided the subject for operas, ballets, tone poems, and other musical works, beginning with Poliziano’s Orfeo, produced in Mantua in 1480, and continuing to the present. Plucking a lyre in time to his words, says Ovid in his classic formulation of the myth, Orpheus makes the pale shades weep; the thirst of Tantalus is momentarily appeased, Sisyphus sits down on his stone to listen, and the Furies’ cheeks are moist with tears 1. |
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