According to the ancients, the Lira that is observed in the sky would be the musical
instrument belonged once to Orfeo, the mythical musician. It was the first Lira to have
been constructed and came realized from Ermete using a shell of turtle and the bowel of
cow for the ropes. A day the inventor found itself to embezzle for mistake some of
cattle of property of Apollo: stopped from this last one, Ermete in order to redeem
itself offered in gift the melodious instrument and the God appreciated it so much that
he wan’t behind the embezzled cattle. In its turn the God gave to the musician Orfeo the
instrument that became its great arm of persuasion towards persons, animals, vegetables
and quite objects. Its music in fact was so melodious that nothing and nobody was in a
position to resist the own will. Joined to the Argonautiche for the search of the gold
vello (you see Aries), during navigation Orfeo defeated mermaids the temptresses with a
song that covered their irresistibile song. Later on he married the Euridice nymph that
died bitten from a snake on which the woman stumbled while escaped from Aristeo (son of
Apollo), which it was predy of passion. Tortured from the pain, the musician crying and
get in the reign of Ade in order to embezzle the child from the hell. With music of its
Lira, the tenebrous divinity was even folded to the demands for Orfeo, but this condition
imposed one: he would have lead Euridice without never to turn itself in order to watch
it in face until to the escape from the hell, otherwise the immediate return of the woman
in the reign of the dead men. Sure of its happened one, the musician began to walk, also
not knowing with certainty if its mistress the same ones following. During along way,
desire of its presence grew to such point that, by the exit, did not succeed to resist
and it was turned: Euridice came immediately sucked in the dusk of the hell. Now defeated,
Orfeo was abandoned to the desperation and other woman with he did not want more no, in
spite of the numerous ones expecting, fascinated from the melancholic music that the
protect one of Apollo continued to dedicate to this last one and its lost mistress.
According to Ovid then, the musician would be died under the darts launch from the
coalition of the women from he refused: these succeeded to cover with theirs yells the
music that it made to fall inoffensive nozzles, so that Orfeo could not avoid of being
killed. According to Eratostene instead, the God Dioniso, envious of the overed-measure
and exclusive devotion towards Apollo, made to kill the musician from its follows.
However Orfeo caught up its Euridice in the hells and the Lira was putted from the MUSE
(like expectable, faithful friends and accomplices of the artist) in the firmament.
The more shining star of the constellation is Vega, from Arabic al-nasr al-waqi that
means "Eagle that attacks", but also "volture", since the oriental people them imagined
in the constellation a hunting eagle. The second more luminous star is Sheliak, from
the Arabic word that it wants to say "harp".