This essay examines Owen Barfield’s reworking of Virgil’s account of the Orpheus myth in the fourth Georgic. It finds that while Barfield retains Virgil’s nesting-doll form he dramatically shifts the thematic focus. In particular, where Virgil’s Stoicism compels him to see Orpheus’s romantic longing for Eurydice as a failure of character, Barfield’s rendering suggests that romantic love both a reflection of and step in the direction of the selfless love towards which each character wittingly or unwittingly strives.
