Confession of the Thracian Women

(Concerning the Death of Orpheus)

He said to us: It will tear me apart if I do not tear it out myself.

We asked him what he meant.

He said: My fingers ply the lyre only because they are cowards. They will not open my chest.

We asked him why.

He said: I turned to the dawn but its pallid fire will not burn away the crimson.

We cried out with one voice and begged him give name to this burning, this tearing, this crimson thing.

He said: The song! The song! It gives me no peace! And his clever hand became a brutish fist and struck his chest. Here! It calls me a prison—I call it a disease. We are of one mind, we two, all we do is beg for freedom from the other. It will win in the end. It will free itself from me as a hatchling from its egg and fly—and I, the broken shell, shall rest.

We found no song.

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