Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus
Garden Exhibit, Colonnade



Under the branches of a low tree the poetic group by Edward Berge, "Muse
Finding the Head of Orpheus," a white marble group of superior elegance
and texture, arrests the passerby. A Muse kneels, drooping in exquisite
pathos over the head of Orpheus found in the waves. The sculptor has
chosen the tragic side of the Orphean myth. The son of Apollo and the
Muse Calliope, whose heaven-taught lyre charmed men and beasts, melted
rocks and even opened the gates of Erebus, had failed to win from death
his bride, Eurydice, lost to him for the second time. As he wandered
disconsolate, the Thracian bacchantes wooed him in vain. Maddened by
failure and by their bacchanal revels, they called upon Bacchus to
avenge, and hurled a javelin upon him. But the music charmed the weapon,
until the wild women drowned it with their cries. Then they dismembered
the singer and threw him to the waves; but the very fragments were
melodious and reached the Muses, who buried them where the nightingale
still sings "Eurydice." So runs the allegory; even drowned by earthly
clamors, slain and torn by wanton hands, the song of Poetry continues,
the weeping Muses save.



Diana
Garden Exhibit, South Lagoon