Orpheus married a nymph named Eurydice, to whom he was passionately devoted. One day, Pan (in the form of the bee keeper Aristaeus) spied Eurydice in the forest and pursued her. While fleeing from him, Eurydice was bitten on the heel by a snake she died and passed into the underworld. Stricken by grief, and finding no satisfaction from his prayers to the gods, Orpheus descended via a cave into the underworld to retrieve her. By the power of his music, he induced Hades and Persephone to allow Eurydice to return with him to the world of the living but Hades added the condition that he must not look back or she would remain with Hades forever. As he led her from the underworld, he could not help but turn to assure himself that Eurydice was following him, and so lost her. He returned to Thrace alone. The women of Thrace, perceiving that Orpheus was now available, tried their best to win him, but he repelled their advances. They tolerated his aloofness as long as they could, but one day, no longer able to bear this insult to their feminine powers, they attacked him and tore him to pieces, throwing his head and lyre into the river Hebros. Some versions of the myth say that the Thracian women were Maenads of Dionysus, and that Dionysus commanded them to tear Orpheus to pieces because he had begun to worship Apollo-Helios. His Thracian origin, his devotion to the Muses, his descent to and return from Hades, and his death by dismemberment show Orpheus to be a human reflection of his god Dionysus and are the fundamental reasons for his designation as patron of the Greek Mysteries.