"Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate:
Our wonted music is in tune no more."
The story now moves similarly in both editions. Orpheus determines to descend to Hades to try to move the infernal powers "with tearful songs and words of honey'd woe." He remembers that he has moved stones and turned the flowing streams. He proceeds at once to the iron gates and raises his song. Pluto demands to know
"What man is he who with his golden lyre
Hath moved the gates that never move,
While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love."
These words leave no doubt that Orpheus sang. Even Proserpine, the spouse of Pluto, confesses to her lord that she feels the new stirrings of sympathy. She desires to hear more of this wondrous song. Now Orpheus sings in octave stanzas. The last stanza of his song is thus translated by Symonds:
"I pray not to you by the waves forlorn
Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron,
By Chaos, where the mighty world was born,
Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon;
But by the fruit that charmed thee on that morn
When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne!
O queen, if thou reject this pleading breath,
I will no more return, but ask for death."
Pluto yields up Euridice according to the well-known condition that Orpheus keep silence and look not back till out of Hades. The poet again sings four Latin lines and with his bride starts for the upper world. The catastrophe is treated in much the same manner as it has been in subsequent versions of the story. Euridice disappears. Orpheus is about to turn back, but he is stopped by Tisiphone. He then breaks into virulent raillery, swears he'll never love woman more and advises all husbands to seek divorce. All this is in resounding octave rime. Then a Mænad calls upon her sisters to defend their sex. They drive Orpheus off the stage and slay him. Returning they sing a chorus, which is the finale of the opera.
"Ciascun segua, O Bacco, te;
Bacco, Bacco, oé, oé!
Di corimbi e di verd'edere