By Ellen Lorenzi-Prince © 2005 All rights reserved
Scarce had she made her
prayer when through her limbs a dragging languor spread, her tender bosom was
wrapped in thin smooth bark, her slender arms were changed to branches and her
hair to leaves.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, ca. 1 CE
The virgin nymph Daphne
delighted, like her goddess Artemis, in wandering alone in the forest’s
depths. But Apollo saw her, wanted her, and pursued her. She ran from him but
could not outrun him. As he was about to seize her, rather than be forsworn to
her goddess, she cried out to Gaea to transform her forever.
Image
source: Roman Ivory Relief, ca. 500 CE
