Geração de Orpheu literature with principal function of agitating, subverting and scandalizing the Portuguese bourgeoisie and - by extension - all social conventions. The journal's name, "Orpheu" was not chosen by accident - as in Greek myth, Orpheus ("Orfeu" in Portuguese) was the musician who, to save his wife Eurydice from Hades, had to travel from the world of the living with the stipulation to not looking back. It was this metaphor that was important to the men of the Geração de Orpheu: the not looking back, the forgetting, the relinquishing of the past and the concentration of attention and force to the
Hades of the Underworld, which was when Heracles shot him with an arrow as Hades was attempting to defend the city of Plyos. After he was shot, however, he traveled to Olympus to heal. Besides Heracles, the only other living people who ventured to the Underworld were also heroes: Odysseus, Aeneas (accompanied by the Sibyl), Orpheus, who Hades showed uncharacteristic mercy towards at Persephone's persuasion, who was moved by Orpheus' music, Theseus with Pirithous, and, in a late romance, Psyche. None of them were pleased with what they witnessed in the realm of the dead. In particular, the Greek war hero