prey it greeted Orpheus. But Orpheus touched his lute, and the
brute, amazed, sank into silence. And still he played, and the dog
would gently have licked the player's feet, and looked up in his face
with its savage eyes full of the light that we see in the eyes of the
dogs of this earth as they gaze with love at their masters. On, then,
strode Orpheus, playing still, and the melody he drew from his lute
passed before him into the realms of Pluto.

Surely never were heard such strains. They told of perfect, tender
love, of unending longing, of pain too great to end with death. Of all
the beauties of the earth they sang--of the sorrow of the world--of
all the world's desire--of things past--of things to come. And ever,
through the song that the lute sang, there came, like a thread of
silver that is woven in a black velvet pall, a limpid melody. It was
as though a bird sang in the mirk night, and it spoke of peace and of
hope, and of joy that knows no ending.

Into the blackest depths of Hades the sounds sped on their way, and
the hands of Time stood still. From his bitter task of trying to quaff
the stream that ever receded from the parched and burning lips,
Tantalus ceased for a moment. The ceaseless course of Ixion's wheel
was stayed, the vulture's relentless beak no longer tore at the
Titan's liver; Sisyphus gave up his weary task of rolling the stone
and sat on the rock to listen, the Danaides rested from their labour
of drawing water in a sieve. For the first time, the cheeks of the
Furies were wet with tears, and the restless shades that came and went
in the darkness, like dead autumn leaves driven by a winter gale,
stood still to gaze and listen. Before the throne where Pluto and his
queen Proserpine were seated, sable-clad and stern, the relentless
Fates at their feet, Orpheus still played on. And to Proserpine then
came the living remembrance of all the joys of her girlhood by the
blue AEgean Sea in the fair island of Sicily. Again she knew the
fragrance and the beauty of the flowers of spring. Even into Hades the
scent of the violets seemed to come, and fresh in her heart was the
sorrow that had been hers on the day on which the ruthless King of
Darkness tore her from her mother and from all that she held most
dear. Silent she sat beside her frowning, stern-faced lord, but her
eyes grew dim.

When, with a quivering sigh, the music stopped, Orpheus fearlessly
pled his cause. To let him have Eurydice, to give