Orpheus

Orpheus is the most celebrated musician in all of Greek mythology — son of the god Apollo and the Muse Calliope, Muse of epic poetry. His lyre was gifted to him by his divine father in childhood, and his mastery was such that trees uprooted themselves to draw near, rocks shifted to listen, and rivers ceased to flow. Even the most fearsome wild beasts were tamed by the strings of his instrument.

He joined the expedition of the Argonauts led by Jason — his song set the rhythm of the oars and kept the crew united in moments of crisis. It was he who saved his companions from the deadly enchantment of the Sirens by playing a counter-melody more beautiful still than their bewitching voices.

The nymph Eurydice, Orpheus's wife, died on their wedding day, bitten by a serpent. Mad with grief, Orpheus took his lyre and descended alive into the Underworld. His song moved Hades himself — who never wept — and softened Persephone. The condemned ceased their torments: Sisyphus sat upon his rock, Ixion's wheel stopped turning.

Hades agreed to let Eurydice leave, on one condition: Orpheus must walk ahead of her without looking back until they reached the surface. He walked, hearing her footsteps behind him — but as the light drew near, the fear of losing her overwhelmed him. He turned. Eurydice vanished into the shadows forever.

After the final loss of Eurydice, Orpheus wandered inconsolable. The Maenads — the Bacchantes, devotees of Dionysus — furious that he remained faithful to Eurydice's memory and refused their company, tore him apart in their ritual frenzy. His head, cast into the river Hebrus, continued to sing as it drifted toward the sea.

The Muses gathered his remains and placed his lyre in the heavens — forming the Lyra constellation with its main star Vega, one of the brightest in the northern sky. Legend says that Orpheus's lyre continues to play alone among the stars, sending music only the gods can hear.

In Saint Seiya, Orpheus of the Lyre is a Silver Knight whose armor bears the mythological instrument. Like his mythological counterpart whose music crosses the boundary between the living and the dead, Orpheus of the Lyre uses his song and the vibrations of his lyre as cosmic weapons capable of shaking the soul of his opponents.

His character reflects the fundamental tension of the myth: beauty and creative force against the violence of combat. Like Orpheus who descended to the Underworld for love and perished at the hands of the Maenads, the knight embodies the vulnerability of the artist in a world of warriors — and the unsuspected power of those who master the arts of the cosmos.