Book I: Fable XII, Apollo and Daphne<\/p>\n
Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, the daughter of the river Peneus, she flies from him. He pursues her; on which, the Nymph, imploring the aid of her father, is changed into a laurel.<\/p>\n
Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was the first love of Ph\u0153bus; whom, not blind chance, but the vengeful anger of Cupid assigned to him.<\/p>\n
The Delian\u00a0God,\u00a0proud of having lately subdued the serpent, had seen him bending the bow and drawing the string, and had said, \u201cWhat hast thou to do, wanton boy, with gallant arms? Such a burden as that\u00a0better\u00a0befits my shoulders; I,\u00a0who am able to give unerring wounds to the wild beasts,\u00a0wounds\u00a0to the enemy, who lately slew with arrows innumerable the swelling Python, that covered so many acres\u00a0of land\u00a0with his pestilential belly. Do thou be contented to excite I know not what flames with thy torch; and do not lay claim to praises\u00a0properly\u00a0my own.\u201d<\/p>\n
To him the son of Venus replies, \u201cLet thy bow shoot all things, Ph\u0153bus; my bow\u00a0shall shoot\u00a0thee; and as much as all animals fall short of thee, so much is thy glory less than mine.\u201d He\u00a0thus\u00a0said; and cleaving the air with his beating wings, with activity he stood upon the shady heights of Parnassus, and drew two weapons out of his arrow-bearing quiver, of different workmanship; the one repels, the other excites desire. That which causes\u00a0love\u00a0is of gold, and is brilliant, with a sharp point; that which repels it is blunt, and contains lead beneath the reed. This one the God fixed in the Nymph, the daughter of Peneus, but with the other he wounded the\u00a0very\u00a0marrow of Apollo, through his bones pierced\u00a0by the arrow. Immediately the one is in love; the other flies from the\u00a0very\u00a0name of a lover, rejoicing in the recesses of the woods, and in the spoils of wild beasts taken\u00a0in hunting, and becomes a rival of the virgin Ph\u0153be. A\u00a0fillet tied together\u00a0her hair, put up without any order. Many a one courted her; she hated all wooers; not able to endure, and quite unacquainted with man, she traverses the solitary parts of the woods, and she cares not what Hymen,\u00a0what love,\u00a0or\u00a0what marriage means. Many a time did her father say, \u201cMy daughter, thou owest me a son-in-law;\u201d\u00a030I. 481-505many a time did her father say, \u201cMy daughter, thou owest me grandchildren.\u201d She, utterly abhorring the nuptial torch,\u00a0as though a crime, has her beauteous face covered with the blush of modesty; and clinging to her father\u2019s neck, with caressing arms, she says, \u201cAllow me, my dearest father, to enjoy perpetual virginity; her father, in times, bygone, granted this to Diana.\u201d<\/p>\n
He indeed complied. But that very beauty forbids\u00a041I. 488-515thee to be what thou wishest, and the charms of thy person are an impediment to thy desires. Ph\u0153bus falls in love, and he covets an alliance with Daphne,\u00a0now\u00a0seen by him, and what he covets he hopes for, and his own oracles deceive him; and as the light stubble is burned, when the ears of corn are taken off, and as hedges are set on fire by the torches, which perchance a traveller has either held too near them, or has left\u00a0there, now about the break of day, thus did the God burst into a flame; thus did he burn throughout his breast, and cherish a fruitless passion with his hopes. He beholds her hair hanging unadorned upon her neck, and he says, \u201cAnd what would\u00a0it be\u00a0if it were arranged?\u201d He sees her eyes, like stars, sparkling with fire; he sees her lips, which it is not enough to have\u00a0merely\u00a0seen; he praises both her fingers and her hands, and her arms and her shoulders naked, from beyond the middle; whatever is hidden from view, he thinks to be still more beauteous. Swifter than the light wind she flies, and she stops not at these words of his, as he calls her back:<\/p>\n
\u201cO Nymph, daughter of Peneus, stay, I entreat thee! I\u00a0am not an enemy following thee. In this way the lamb\u00a0flies\u00a0from\u00a0the wolf; thus the deer\u00a0flies\u00a0from the lion; thus the dove flies from the eagle with trembling wing;\u00a0in this way\u00a0each\u00a0creature flies from\u00a0its enemy: love is the cause of my following thee. Ah! wretched me! shouldst thou fall on thy face, or should the brambles tear thy legs, that deserve not to be injured, and should I prove the cause of pain to thee. The places are rugged, through which thou art\u00a0thus\u00a0hastening; run more leisurely, I\u00a0entreat thee, and restrain thy flight; I\u00a0myself will follow more leisurely. And yet, inquire whom thou dost please; I\u00a0am not an inhabitant of the mountains, I\u00a0am not a shepherd; I\u00a0am not here, in rude guise,\u00a0watching the herds or the flocks. Thou knowest not, rash girl, thou knowest not from whom thou art flying, and therefore it is that thou dost fly.\u00a0The Delphian land, Claros and Tenedos,\u00a0and the Patar\u00e6an palace pays service to me. Jupiter is my sire; by me, what shall be, what has been, and what is, is disclosed; through me, songs harmonize with the strings. My own\u00a0arrow, indeed, is unerring; yet one there is still more unerring than my own, which has made this wound in my heart,\u00a0before\u00a0unscathed. The healing art is my discovery, and throughout the world I am honored as the bearer of help, and the properties of simples are\u00a0subjected to me. Ah, wretched me!\u00a0that love is not to be cured by any herbs; and that those arts which afford relief to all, are of no avail for their master.\u201d<\/p>\n
The daughter of Peneus flies from him, about to say still more, with timid step, and together with him she leaves his unfinished address. Then, too, she appeared lovely; the winds exposed her form to view, and the gusts meeting her fluttered about her garments, as they came in contact, and the light breeze spread behind her careless locks; and\u00a0thus, by her flight, was her beauty increased. But the youthful God\u00a0has not patience any longer to waste his blandishments; and as love urges him on, he follows her steps with hastening pace. As when the greyhound\u00a0has seen the hare in the open field, and the one by\u00a0the speed of\u00a0his legs pursues his prey, the other\u00a0seeks\u00a0her safety; the one is like as if just about to fasten\u00a0on the other, and now, even now, hopes to catch her, and with nose outstretched plies upon the footsteps\u00a0of the hare. The other is\u00a033I. 537-562in doubt whether she is caught\u00a0already, and is delivered from his very bite, and leaves behind the mouth\u00a0just\u00a0touching her.\u00a0And\u00a0so is the God, and\u00a0so\u00a0is the virgin;\u00a0he swift with hopes, she with fear.<\/p>\n
Yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and denies her\u00a0any\u00a0rest; and is\u00a0now\u00a0just at her back as she flies, and is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck. Her strength being\u00a0now\u00a0spent, she grows pale, and being quite faint, with the fatigue of so swift a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, \u201cGive me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers\u00a0have divine power. Oh Earth, either yawn\u00a0to swallow me, or by changing it, destroy that form, by which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardly had she ended her prayer,\u00a0when\u00a0a heavy torpor seizes her limbs;\u00a0and\u00a0her soft breasts are covered with a thin bark. Her hair grows into green leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, the moment before so swift, adhere by sluggish roots; a\u00a0leafy\u00a0canopy overspreads her features; her elegance alone\u00a0remains in her. This, too, Ph\u0153bus admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and\u00a0then, embracing the branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood,\u00a0and\u00a0yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: \u201cBut since thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my lyre,\u00a0my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,\u00a0and the long procession shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same,\u00a0shalt\u00a0stand as a most faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,\u00a0and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is\u00a0ever\u00a0youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting honors of thy foliage.\u201d<\/p>\n
P\u00e6an had ended\u00a0his speech; the laurel nodded assent\u00a0with its new-made boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head.<\/p>\n
EXPLANATION.<\/p>\n
To explain this Fable, it must be laid down as a principle that there were originally many Jupiters, and Apollos, and Mercuries, whose intrigues being, in lapse of time, attributed to but one individual, that fact accounts for the great number of children which claimed those respective Gods for their fathers.<\/p>\n
Some prince probably, for whom his love of learning had acquired the name of Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, pursued her to the brink of the river Peneus, into which, being accidentally precipitated, she perished in her lover\u2019s sight. Some laurels growing near the spot, perhaps gave rise to the story of her transformation; or possibly the etymology of the word \u2018Daphne,\u2019 which in Greek signifies a laurel, was the foundation of the Fable. Pausanias, however, in his Arcadia, gives another version of this story. He says that Leucippus, son of \u0152nomaus, king of Pisa, falling in love with Daphne, disguised himself in female apparel, and devoted himself to her service. He soon procured her friendship and confidence; but Apollo, who was his rival, having discovered his fraud, one day redoubled the heat of the sun. Daphne and her companions going to bathe, obliged Leucippus to follow their example, on which, having discovered his stratagem, they killed him with the arrows which they carried for the purposes of hunting.<\/p>\n
Diodorus Siculus tells us that Daphne was the same with Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, who was banished to Delphi, where she delivered oracles, of the language of which Homer availed himself in the composition of his poems. The inhabitants of Antioch asserted that the adventure here narrated happened in the suburbs of their city, which thence derived its name of Daphne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Book I: Fable XII, Apollo and Daphne Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, the daughter of the river Peneus, she flies from him. He pursues her; on which, the Nymph, imploring the aid of her father, is changed into a laurel. Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was the first love of Ph\u0153bus; whom, not blind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-79956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}