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He thus loses the slight opportunity previously afforded him of presenting a dramatic individuality apart from the very essence of his tragedy. The announcement to Orfeo of Euridice's death begins the third act of the revised text, which is amplified at this point by the introduction of a satyr Mnesillo, who acts as chorus to Orfeo's lament.
Poetic justice befalls the two nymphs in an eclogue by Luca di Lorenzo, printed in 1530, the disdainful Diversa being condemned to love the boor Fantasia, while Euridice's loving disposition is rewarded by the devotion of Orindio. We now come to what may almost be regarded as the first conscious attempt to write a pastoral play an attempt, however, which met with but partial success.
In the original Orfeo is introduced naturally enough in his character of supreme poet and musician to do honour to the occasion, and it is only after he has been on the stage some time that the news of Euridice's death is brought. In the revision he is merely introduced for the purpose of being informed of his wife's death he has hardly been so much as mentioned before.
At the conclusion of this chorus the dryads leave the stage. Orpheus enters singing a Latin stanza of four lines beginning: "Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus Herculis." In Padre Affo's edition it is at this point that a dryad tells Orpheus of Euridice's death. Mnesillus, a satyr, mocks him. The hero now sings in the vernacular: "Ora piangiamo, O sconsolata lyra," etc.
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