The design for The Death of Orpheus and the Orpheus story as a whole, once again gave the opportunity for Burne-Jones to identify with the main character. The story of Orpheus's lost love and his attempt to retrieve it echoes his relationship with Maria Zambaco, a period of bliss is cut short when Eurydice dies after being bitten by a snake, his intense lamentation results in him journeying to Hades in an effort to retrieve his lost love. Burne-Jones had recently experienced a catastrophic episode which resulted in Maria's suicide attempt and their relationship was forever altered afterwards. It is suggested here that the Death of Orpheus signifies the death of a love, consequently he was not willing to abandon the design when an illustrated book was no longer feasible and he re-used it in more detail in a drawing of c.1875 (Ashmolean Acc no. WA1926.31 ) and on the Graham piano. This part composition would seem to be preparatory to creating a woodcut and its unfinished state supports that fact that the illustrated version of The Earthly Paradise did not appear and the story was not included in the published version of 1870. Morris decided that it was too long and unbalanced the volume.