Sir Orfeo original Greek myth. Unlike Orpheus who was actually descended from Gods, Sir Orfeo's parents were just named after Gods. When Sir Orfeo goes to take his wife back, no condition is issued to not look back at her. Sir Orfeo exiles himself for ten years, citing not wanting to see any more women after suffering the loss of his beautiful wife. For Orpheus, this self-exile occurs after he has lost Eurydice the second time. The loss of Eurydice, and the saving of Heurodis is the main difference between the tragedy of the original myth and the romance lai "Sir Orfeo".
The Stress of Her Regard beings as having qualities of vampires, succubi, incubi, Lamia, fairies, and jinn. Not only predators but sometimes benefactors of humans, they are the basis for both the Muses and the Graeae. The novel's title is taken from the poem "Sphinx and Medusa" by Clark Ashton Smith ("...Yet thought must see/That eve of time when man no longer yearns,/Grown deaf before Life's Sphinx, whose lips are barred;/When from the spaces of Eternity,/Silence, a rigorous Medusa, turns/On the lost world the stress of her regard."). The story begins shortly before the wedding of Michael Crawford, a doctor. The night before he marries