Exit Orpheus

It would not be without reluctance and perhaps too, some remorse, that I should publish this piece. This work would be conceived towards the latter months of the final redaction of the epic poem, I, Faust. The succession of one forgotten form after another would seem twice-fold futile. Adding to this, yet another impossible legend, Orpheus. And as customary, it could not be a homage to the beauty of his vertiginous song, but rather his final shrill and tragic gesture still resounding in the halls of Hades... –Matthew Hong / from Avant-Propos, Exit Orpheus