Der Orpheus des Epitaphios Bionos in den Werken von Vergil und Ovid

Ovid’s representation of Orpheus is strictly related to Virgil’s texts. A wide range of studies have proved so far that the 10 th book of Metamorphoses follows the Georgics as far as narrative structure and use of vocabulary are concerned. Nevertheless it has been omitted, that Ovid’s work contains a number of patterns derived not from the Georgics but the Eclogues . Important textual parallelisms — such as Orpheus as being the representative of the elegy in contrast to epic, recusatio, the descent into the nether world, the motif of mourning nature, Hyacinthus, Adonis et Eurydice, the problem of a poet’s immortality, the mourning nature — attest that both Virgil’s and Ovid’s view of Orpheus is rooted in Epitaphios Bionos consequently this work is one of the most significant literary sources of both texts