No Orpheus, No Eurydice

Drawing on the Greek legend which inspired the title, ‘No Orpheus, No Eurydice’, this poem examines the classic tale of doomed love and contrasts it with the main character’s own failed romance. The poem is filled with a sense of melancholy as the speaker considers the way that this man feels. The woman in the poem has left him for another man. However, he still imagines her own unhappiness. Their lives have been so “entwined” that he imagines her pain at the separation to be equal to his.

No Orpheus, No Eurydice
Stephen Spender

Nipples of bullets, precipices, Ropes, knives, all Now would seem as gentle As the far away kisses Of her these days remove -To the dervish of his mind Lost to her love. 

(...)Read the full text of 'No Orpheus, No Eurydice'.

Summary

‘No Orpheus, No Eurydice’ is a poem filled with a sense of sadness as the speaker looks at a man who has recently experienced heartbreak.

The poem opens with images of violence, using these to demonstrate the depth of feeling that the man is experiencing. As the poem continues, the main character is framed as being alone. The speaker creates an image of a man completely isolated. However, he still imagines his lost love, and imagines her calling him again.

It is revealed that the woman has left him for another man, but he still imagines that she is suffering in a similar way to him, demonstrating a lack of acceptance on his part. The speaker ties the poem into the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. He describes scenes that are similar to Orpheus’ journey to the Underworld, seeking his lost love. However, the speaker acknowledges the differences. The man would not find her there, as she had simply left him. Her life now, in the “sun,” is contrasted with the misery that he now lives in. There is a sense of irony to the end of the poem. The poet has built up the idea of a tragedy comparable to an ancient myth. Then, at the very end, they conclude that the woman has simply left him for another man.

Expert Commentary

Insights by Giles Towler

BA (Hons) in History and English Literature from Manchester University

'No Orpheus, No Eurydice' is an interesting poem as it presents an unfortunate situation as something far more tragic, to the extent that it is compared to a Greek myth. The poet manages to capture both the sense of tragedy and loss that the main character in the poem is feeling and the subtle sense of irony that the speaker implies when the truth is revealed, subverting their expectations and beliefs. The unreliable narrator adds an extra depth to the poem as well as a subtle humor.

Structure and Form

This poem is written in free verse. There is no consistent meter throughout the poem, and there is no rhyming scheme. The poem is five stanzas long, each of which spans differing lengths. The use of free verse helps the poet to express the mood of the main character in the poem, creating images of their melancholy that are intertwined with imagery from the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The first two stanzas are septets, which serve as an introduction to the poem. The speaker introduces the idea of lost love and sets the melancholic tone of the poem. The next stanza is slightly longer at eight lines, forming an octet, and sees a slight shift in focus. Now, the speaker is considering the way that the main character of the poem is thinking.

The fourth stanza is the longest. It is fourteen lines long and features the speaker incorporating the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Spender mixes mythical imagery with more mundane, everyday ideas. In the final stanza, which is another septet, the speaker concludes that the character’s situation is not the same as the mythical love affair, working as a conclusion to the poem.

With its free verse form, the poem features enjambment as a way to link lines together, allowing the poet to create a vivid and emotional scene. The free verse style allows the poet to move from one idea and image to the next without any of the constraints that might have come as a result of using a more structured form, matching the emotional turmoil of the man. There is no consistent rhyming structure to the poem. Some of the lines do, in fact, rhyme, but there is no pattern to them.

Literary Devices

This poem is rich in mood and imagery. With this in mind, the poet uses a number of literary devices to achieve the desired effect. Simile and metaphor feature throughout the poem, and the poet uses allusion to compare the main character to Orpheus. Enjambment is also used to link one line to the next, adding an extra layer of meaning and making the poem flow.

At the start of the poem, a simile is used to compare violent objects to more gentle ones, creating an interesting contrast. Violent objects such as knives are likened to gentle kisses, showing the depth of the character’s despair. Likewise, these weapons and violent objects could be seen as metaphors for the feelings that he is experiencing.

Throughout the poem, the poet alludes to the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Although it is mentioned in the title, it is not until later in the poem that it is explicitly mentioned. However, in the preceding stanza, the poet describes Orpheus’ journey searching for Eurydice, creating a sense of the tragedy that the character is experiencing.

Enjambment is used in the poem to add a sense of flow but also to give extra meaning to certain sentences. For example, when the poet says, “She has truly packed and gone / To live with someone / Else, in pleasures of the sun”, the speaker is leaving the fact that it is someone “else” till the next line. This adds extra emphasis to it. The focus is then placed on the word “else,” making the reader understand the character’s sorrow – that the person she is with is not them.

Themes

The main theme of this poem is love. However, it is not a traditional love poem. Rather, it is about a failed love affair and the heartache that follows. The poet looks at the main character and describes their feelings and how they have reacted to their failed love affair. There seems to be a sense of longing as they look to the past and wish to go back to it.

Sadness is another theme of the poem. The sense of melancholy that the main character feels is the overriding emotion of the poem. Even though there is a sense of sadness throughout the poem, the poet presents it with a sense of irony as they make it appear more melodramatic than it might usually warrant.

To achieve this sense of melodrama, the poet also relies on Greek mythology. The title of the poem refers to a Greek myth of a doomed love affair, and this is referenced throughout. These references help to create a sense of tragedy in the poem, but the true nature of the failed affair makes this seem like it is being used ironically.

Analysis, Stanza by Stanza

Stanza One

Nipples of bullets, precipices,

Ropes, knives, all

Now would seem as gentle

As the far away kisses

Of her these days remove

-To the dervish of his mind

Lost to her love.

The poem opens with violent imagery, as “bullets”, “precipices”, “Ropes”, and “knives” all hold connotations of brutality, harm, and conflict. However, the speaker adds a human touch to it as well: by comparing the nipples to bullets in a metaphor, the reader is given sensual imagery to contrast with the violence of these objects. This foreshadows the nature of this poem, discussing a failed romance.

Note the simile characterising these violent objects as “gentle”. The man’s suffering is so profound that physical pain means nothing. This indicates the depths of his despair, perhaps even alluding to his desire for a violent end to his suffering, and that the items capable of this harm would be welcome.

The contrasting comparisons continue as the aforementioned violent objects are compared to “gentle (…) kisses”. These kisses are far away, which hints at the nature of the man’s sorrow. As they are “far away”, the reader can infer that the man is separated from them both physically and by time. By extension, the woman who kissed him is also now far away. Now that their relationship is over, the kisses are far in the past and impossible for him to reclaim. The “days” which separate them are almost personified, portraying them as a cruel force which severs love.

These kisses now only exist in his mind. It is described as “dervish”, a piece of imagery which reflects the agitated state of his thinking, conjuring the idea of wild movement within. It functions as a form of personification. His mind cannot be at peace, because it is “lost to her love”. All that he can think about is his lost love now. It is only here, at the end of the first stanza, that it is fully revealed that his love is lost. This will be a storytelling device that Spender uses throughout the poem.

Stanza Two

There where his thoughts alone

(…)

For him to follow, when she calls.

In the second stanza, the omniscient narrator continues to look at the man’s mind and the descriptions become more abstract. Their personification is furthered, as their “dervish” demeanour is highlighted again through their “Dance”. These thoughts are alone in his mind, showing that they are all that he can think of. The “walls” that are being referred to are a metaphorical representation of the walls of his mind. His thoughts are trapped within this confined space, unable to be controlled as they become chaos itself. There is no sense of expansiveness to his thoughts. Instead, he is surrounded and unable to escape.

The thoughts are continually personified, as now they “paint” the image of the man’s lost love. This creative metaphor alludes to a memory, as the man recalls her visage. Notably, she is characterised as “his pale darling”, suggesting some form of ownership.

She is described as “pale,” which makes her sound almost ghostly, or ethereal in some way. This imagery continues as the narrator describes her as being “Dead”. She is also described as “piteous”, suggesting that she is worthy of pity – perhaps because she has met an early end. The words “paint”, “pale”, and “piteous” form a pattern of plosive alliteration, accompanied by the consonance of “space”, repeating the “p” sound. This adds a sense of dramatism to the speaker’s tone, one which perhaps seems to be tinged with irony.

The description of the woman’s surroundings creates a dynamic depiction of some kind of afterlife. The “blowing winds of space” sound as though they are removed from the world of the living. Note the positioning of the woman: to be in space, she would be above the man. As such, the distance between them is actualised as it becomes physical.

The ethereal nature of the “space” is reinforced through consonance, as the “w” sound is repeated across “blowing”, “winds”, “waiting”, “sweet”, and “follow”. This mimics the sound of the wind itself, emphasising the vast, incomprehensible nature of the space she occupies.

The reader could be forgiven here for thinking that his love is, in fact, dead. After all, it is emphasised through capitalisation. This would be the source of their separation and would also explain his sorrow. The description of her now, waiting for him to follow, is the first allusion to the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, as he followed her to the Underworld. This helps to add a sense of irony and humor to the poem when it is later revealed that she is not, in fact, dead. It makes the character’s mourning seem melodramatic.

Stanza Three

For how can he believe

(…)

Tore hers too from mine.’

Now, more of the truth is revealed about what really happened to the woman. The stanza opens with the main character considering the woman he has lost. It is now revealed that she is not, in fact, dead. Instead, he imagines her in this ghostly, metaphorical form because he believes that she must be suffering in the same way that he is. This tells the reader immediately that she is alive.

A theme of dramatic irony is hinted at through the rhetorical question, “how can he believe / Her loss less than his?”. This is further indicated by the visual parallelism of the words “loss” and “less”, which are strung together for emphasis. It alludes that the woman’s loss likely is “less”, creating a humorous tone between the speaker and the reader.

The next part of the poem is quoted as the man’s thoughts. Now, the truth is revealed about what happened between him and the woman. By opening his statement with the word “True,” the man is acknowledging a truth that he perhaps doesn’t want to. He accepts that she left him for another man – represented as his “kiss” through synecdoche. This emphasises the sensual or sexual nature of this attraction. The tragedy that was set up in the previous stanza – his lost love reduced to a ghost – seems somewhat absurd now, as it is confirmed that she is not dead. In fact, she has just left him for someone else.

However, despite the fact that this woman seems to have moved on, the man cannot accept it. He believes that they were so close that she must be feeling some of what he is feeling. The idea of them “entwined” demonstrates the closeness that he believes they shared. This is showing that he sees their lives as inextricably linked. He believes that part of his heart was torn away from hers, and that a part of hers must, therefore, have been torn from his too. By using the word “torn,” the poet is once again using violent imagery to express the depth of the character’s feelings. It is clear that this separation has a sudden and drastic effect on him.

The man’s dramatic tone is evident through the consonance of his thoughts, which feature repetition of the “t” sound. This can be seen in “True it is that”, “Yet”, “entwine”, “That the”, “heart”, “Torn”, “apart”, “Tore”, and “too”. The dramatism here can be likened to that of poets from the Romantic era, using lengthy, hyperbolised lamentations to describe the suffering of love.

Stanza Four

O, but if he started

(…)

Her cold, starry, wondering face.

This is the stanza that most directly alludes to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The narrator poses a hypothetical journey for the man, which bears parallels to Orpheus’ own journey into the Underworld. The hypothetical nature is reinforced through the repetition of “if”, showing the man has done no such thing. This lengthy hypothetical builds drama and tension despite its imagined nature, all of which builds to the narrator stating that the man’s journey would be in vain, as this woman is not waiting for him – she is gone. Of her own free will, at that.

The dramatic tone reminiscent of the Romantic period speakers is continued here, particularly through the exclamatory “O”, which was commonly used in Romantic poetry to heighten the dramatic nature of monologues.

Note the oxymoronic nature of being “born” into “death”. This contradictory statement alludes to the afterlife, which acts as a new lease on life in some senses.

Spender invokes the idiom of “Death is the great leveller”, which has featured in many texts throughout the centuries. For example, in ‘Don Juan’, Byron writes “Gracchus of all mortality, who levels, / With his Agrarian laws, the high estate (…) Death’s a reformer, all men must allow”. Spender communicates this through the nakedness of those entering the Underworld: each is stripped of their wealth, rank, and identity, forced to begin anew. Thus, each is “poor”, though it is a relative term which is redundant here, as there is no man in death who is “rich” to render the others comparatively “poor”.

In the legend, Orpheus played a song on his lyre that was so beautiful that it moved Hades to release Eurydice. Here, the man is imagining himself playing on a harp. His “nerves” are strung to this harp. This shows that he is demonstrating what he is feeling with the song that he is playing: his own body becomes his instrument as Spender invokes the grotesque imagery of one’s nerves forming the strings of a harp.

Next, he calls this woman his wife, although it is not clear if they were married or if he is just trying to express how close he feels to her. It could also be wishful thinking, as he imagines bringing her back to life. This is a metaphor for him bringing the woman that he has lost back to him. He is fantasizing about rekindling the romance. He imagines her life without him to be like the Underworld or death itself, a dull and unpleasant place that he can rescue her from.

As the narrator underlines the true, decidedly unromantic nature of their relationship, they describe the woman through a tricolon of adjectives. The metaphorically “cold, starry, wondering face” of the woman reinforces her ghostly visage. However, the narrator clarifies the man will not find this face, as the woman is neither dead nor waiting for him.

Stanza Five

For he is no Orpheus,

(…)

Here, there, or anywhere.

In the final stanza, the narrator reveals the reason why he will not find her where he is looking for her. His relationship with hers was not the tragic love story that he had imagined it to be. She has left him, and his fantasies about Orpheus are just that – fantasies. Returning from the main character’s melodramatic feelings regarding his relationship, the narrator brings things back to reality. Describing her as having “packed and gone” shows both the finality of what she has done, but also the mundanity of it. She has not been whisked off to Hades, where she needs to be rescued from. She has simply left.

This is emphasised through the enjambment of “someone / Else”, clarifying that she has chosen another man over him.

The fact that she has left him for another man shows that his idea of them as entwined, and that she might be feeling the same despair that he does, are nothing more than aspects of this fantasy. She has clearly moved on, while he is still lost in his despair. This is contrasted with the way that his former lover is living now. She is living in “pleasures of the sun,” which contrasts with the darkness of the previous stanza, where he sees himself.

The idea that he had that she was living in the same kind of misery is not the reality. In fact, she is far from his world of suffering – his “kingdoms of despair” suggest the scale of his unhappiness. The fact that these are described in the tricolon “Here, there, or anywhere” shows both the scale of his sorrow and also the fact that he takes it with him everywhere that he goes. The man is presented as a tragic figure, but the tone of the poem seems to be more ironic, building up the idea of this great tragic relationship, when it cannot, in fact, be compared to the tragic myth that is mentioned.

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