The myth of Orpheus

Here is a link to a short summary of the myth as Milton would have known it. The main source for the myth is Book Ten of Ovid's Metamorphoses. You can find a prose translation into English here, with explanatory notes.

There are many, many representations and re-tellings of the myth of Orpheus in western art. One that might interest any of you with a passion for cinema is Jean Cocteau's film Orphée.  If you ever get the chance to see it, do! It was released in 1950, but a good case could be made for seeing it as fundamentally a 'modernist' work.