Orpheus and Eurydice.
     Orpheus married Eurydice, a Dryad, but their union was short-lived. According to Ovid, as the new bride wandered through a field of grass she was bitten by a serpent and died instantly. Grief-stricken, Orpheus descended to the Underworld to beg Persephone for his wife’s return. He sang of his love so beautifully that Persephone allowed him to take Eurydice and leave, on the condition that as they journeyed to the world above, Orpheus would not look back. As they were about to emerge, Orpheus, fearing for his wife’s wellbeing, looked back at her and Eurydice was drawn back into Hades. When Orpheus tried to return, he found the way inexorably barred. After losing Eurydice in this way, Orpheus mourned inconsolably.
     A similar story was told by Vergil, but in his version Eurydice was killed by snakes as she fled from the advances of Aristaeus, a rustic deity and beekeeper, son of Apollo and Cyrene. After Euryd-ice’s death her sister Dryads, in grief and anger, caused all of Aristaeus’s bees to die. Bewildered by his loss, Aristaeus appealed to Proteus, the wise old man of the sea, who helped him to appease the nymphs and gain a new swarm of bees.
     Treatments of this subject in postclassical art most commonly depict Eurydice bitten by a serpent while running from Aristaeus, Orpheus mourning the loss of his wife, and Orpheus leading Eurydice from Hades.