EURYDICE ESCAPES

14 October 2026

I was reminded at Hadestown of both the Rainer Maria Rilke poem and that of Carol Ann Duffy. The former has that extraordinary moment when Eurydice, as she and Orpheus are making their way out of hell,  no longer knows who he is:

“And when all at once the god stopped

her, and with pain in his voice

spoke the words: he has turned around–,

she couldn't grasp this and quietly said: who?” 

Poignant and heart breaking. 

Duffy’s poem is the opposite. A Eurydice that is grateful to be away from the endless stalking of Orpheus. 

Carol Ann Duffy – « Eurydice », The World’s Wife (1999)

 "Girls, I was dead and down

 in the Underworld, a shade,

 a shadow of my former self, nowhen.

 It was a place where language stopped,

 a black full stop, a black hole

 Where the words had to come to an end.

 And end they did there,

 last words,

 famous or not.

 It suited me down to the ground.

 So imagine me there,

 unavailable,

 out of this world,

 then picture my face in that place

 of Eternal Repose,

 in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe

 from the kind of a man

 who follows her round

 writing poems,

 hovers about

 while she reads them,

 calls her His Muse,

 and once sulked for a night and a day

 because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns.

 Just picture my face

 when I heard

Ye Gods

a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door.

 Him.

 Big O.

 Larger than life.

 With his lyre

 and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.

 Things were different back then.

 For the men, verse-wise,

 Big O was the boy. Legendary.

 The blurb on the back of his books claimed

 that animals,

 aardvark to zebra,

 flocked to his side when he sang,

 fish leapt in their shoals

 at the sound of his voice,

 even the mute, sullen stones at his feet

 wept wee, silver tears.

 1

Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself,

 I should know.)

 And given my time all over again,

 rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself

 than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc.

 In fact girls, I’d rather be dead.

 But the Gods are like publishers,

 usually male,

 and what you doubtless know of my tale

 is the deal.

 Orpheus strutted his stuff.

 The bloodless ghosts were in tears.

 Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years.

 Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers.

 The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.

 Like it or not,

 I must follow him back to our life

Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife

to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes,

 octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets,

 elegies, limericks, villanelles,

 histories, myths…

 He’d been told that he mustn’t look back

 or turn round,

 but walk steadily upwards,

 myself right behind him,

 out of the Underworld

 into the upper air that for me was the past.

 He’d been warned

 that one look would lose me

 for ever and ever.

 So we walked, we walked.

 Nobody talked.

 Girls, forget what you’ve read.

 It happened like this

I did everything in my power

 to make him look back.

 What did I have to do, I said,

 to make him see we were through?

 I was dead. Deceased.

 I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late.

 Past my sell-by date…

 2

I stretched out my hand

 to touch him once

 on the back of the neck.

 Please let me stay.

 But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.

 It was an uphill schlep

 from death to life

 and with every step

 I willed him to turn.

 I was thinking of filching the poem

 out of his cloak,

 when inspiration finally struck.

 I stopped, thrilled.

 He was a yard in front.

 My voice shook when I spoke

Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece.

 I’d love to hear it again…

 He was smiling modestly,

 when he turned,

 when he turned and he looked at me.

 What else?

 I noticed he hadn’t shaved.

 I waved once and was gone.

 The dead are so talented.

 The living walk by the edge of a vast lake

 near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead."

Melbourne Theatre Company did a rather unusual presentation of Duffy’s poetry from her collection The World’s Wife in 2005, directed by Ariette Taylor and starring Anni Finsterer, Christen O'Leary, Deidre Rubenstein, and Luke Byrne.

As we said in the programme “Duffy's poems in The World's Wife focus on either well known female figures or fictional counterparts to well-known male figures. The themes of the poems focus on the complexities of gender relations, the roles of women, and the often ill treatment of women through fictional, biblical, mythical, and historical contexts. Duffy often also makes modern day references in her poems in order to connect the different settings together into a cohesive collection and also highlight how the ill treatment towards women has endured through all the different contexts and into the modern era.”

Clever poems.

Christen O'Leary

Deidre Rubenstein