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
Orpheus "to change allegiance, status, ownership". Cognates could include Greek ὄρφνη ("órphnē") "darkness", and surely Greek ὀρφανός ("orphanós") "fatherless, orphan", from which comes English "orphan" by way of Latin. Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early 6th century AD, gave the unlikely etymology meaning "best voice," "Oraia-phonos". The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a two-word fragment of the sixth-century BC lyric poet Ibycus: "onomaklyton Orphēn" ("Orpheus famous-of-name"). He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod. Most ancient sources accept his historical existence; Aristotle is an exception. Pindar calls Orpheus "the father of songs" and identifies him as a