Abstract: The passage from Il convivio on allegorical meaning evoked the power of Orpheus. But it is by insisting on the risk of the loss of this power (the death of Orpheus) that we can find signs of a mythic presence in different passages of Dante's work, from Vita Nova to Purgatorio, from the “stones that cry out” to the myth of Philomela. After all, the poet can only complete his journey to Beatrice if he successfully escapes the sort of stupor in which Eurydice’s death plunged Orpheus.
