Orpheus was a mythical Thracian singer who, according to the familiar story, succeeded in rescuing his wife Eurydice from Hades, but lost her again by disregarding the injunction not to look back at her till they reached the upper air. He was subsequently torn in pieces by Dionysus' female worshippers in a religious frenzy. The version given here, which represents Orpheus' descent alive to hell as an act of cowardice rather than of courage, and his death as a punishment for this cowardice rather than for his disdain of Dionysus, is otherwise unknown and may be the product of Plato's own fancy.