Ekaterina Kostova

A miniature blue flower from the rocks in the Rhodopes can bloom after it has been plucked if planted again. They call him a silivryak. But also the Orpheus flower. Why? I have asked myself many times. But so far I have not come up with an answer that is in harmony with my expectation of personal discovery. Probably because behind the fact that this is due to anabiosis – or dormancy of vitality – I myself wanted to find something else. And maybe because I secretly hoped that there was magic in the flower that survived the Ice Age to this day.

But is there one? Around Orpheus or in himself?

I start from the question of who Orpheus is.

We know the myth that the skilled singer fell so in love with Eurydice that he was not afraid to go down to the underworld to beg for her return to the world of the living. This happens on their wedding day, and the reason is a snake bite. The god of the underworld Hades succumbed to the fervent pleas of the lover Orpheus, but made it a condition that on the way back he would never once look at his beloved. A single glance at Eurydice takes her back to the land of the dead forever. And Orpheus was later torn apart by the menades only because he never paid attention to them.

Let’s look at the plot and the personality of Orpheus. If the magic was in love, she would save Eurydice and triumph over death. If it was in Orpheus’ songs, they would put Hades to sleep and the beloved would leave the realm of the dead without any conditions. If he was in Orpheus himself, he would not first succumb to the temptation to see Eurydice, and so he would get her back. If he lost her forever, he might not be torn.

In each of these variants of plot development, Orpheus would be a hero, and only in the case of his survival without Eurydice would carry a halo of tragedy. But which of us chooses the circumstances of our lives? And don’t our actions, according to the most unexpected of them, reveal our deep essence?

For some, such an unexpected circumstance that catalyzes qualities unknown to them never comes into their lives.

For Orpheus, however, he appears. And it is neither falling in love nor marriage. It is the snake bite of his beloved. From then on, his actions begin to turn his personality with the lining out, and the more complicated the circumstances become, independent of himself, the deeper into the layers of his soul we see.

And we discover those imperfections, because of which the image of the Thracian singer, in my opinion, breaks through the shield of oblivion and reaches us, exciting.

Going down into the world of the dead without knowing if you will get out of there on your own, and even following your love, can be perceived as a frightening suicide syndrome or outright recklessness. But also as fearlessness to do the impossible in the name of your heart. If you prayed not to lose your beloved with songs and not with a sword, in the time of Orpheus, many would consider it a physical weakness. But it can also be a force of spirit. They would interpret as foolish the risk of him losing his love just because of his vanity of making sure he followed him. But it may be self-belief. And to conclude that what, if not deliberate self-destruction, is the lack of resistance to aggression against him, be it love! And to be elevating above vanity to be liked and praised, to be wiser …

Let’s put our hand on our heart and admit – have we not been criticized at least once in our lives for recklessness, weakness, stupidity, vanity, apathy or self-destruction? While others have not applauded us for the exact opposite – for fearlessness, strength of spirit, self-belief and humility of the ego?

And if each of us can be judged in one way or another, then what makes Orpheus immortal?

In search of the key to this answer, I return to the legend of the Rhodopes about the Silivryak. She says that when Orpheus was torn, a small blue flower sprouted in the place of the drops of his blood, capable of surviving even in the most severe storms, even after its breaking.

Then all my questions so far can be reduced to the question of what survives after the torn Orpheus? And the answer is: not his love. Not the courage to enter the realm of the dead. Not the passion not to lose your loved one. Not loyalty to her, even when there is no way to bring her back. And the songs!

Those he has sung all his life. With which he endowed the world. Which have enchanted both humans and animals. And who for thousands of years have sculpted his image not of a tragic lover, but of a poet with a lyre. And yes, there is magic in the lyre!

The Bulgarian folk artist has captured exactly this in the legend of the blue flower from the Rhodopes. He saw in him a realized metaphor of the song, capable of unfolding and after centuries of silence, connecting the moment with eternity, he called it by the only possible name – the one whose spirit preserves the memory and is itself a memory of poetry. Orpheus.

Translated by Antonia Baeva