Daphne

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Daphne

According to Greek myth

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
chased the nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
Daphne (meaning "laurel

Bay Laurel

The Bay Laurel , also known as True Laurel, Sweet Bay, Grecian Laurel, Laurel, or Bay Tree, is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub reaching 10?18 m tall, native to the Mediterranean region....
"), daughter either of Peneus

Peneus

In Greek mythology, Peneus was a river god, one of the three-thousand Rivers, a child of Oceanus and Tethys . The nymph Creusa bore him one son, Hypseus, who was King of the Lapiths, and three daughters, Cyrene, Daphne, and Stilbe...
and Creusa

Creusa

In Greek mythology, four people had the name Creusa ; the name means simply "princess"....
in Thessaly

Thessaly

Thessaly is one of the 13 Peripheries of Greece of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 Prefectures of Greece. The capital of the periphery and traditional Regions of Greece is Larissa....
, or of the river Ladon

Ladon River

The river Ladon features in Greek mythology. It rises in Arcadia, west of Tripoli, Greece. It is a tributary to the river Alfeios River, which empties into the Ionian Sea....
in Arcadia

Arcadia

Arcadia, Arkad?a , or Arcady is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas....
. The pursuit of a local nymph by an Olympian god

Twelve Olympians

The Twelve Olympians or younger gods, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal Greek Godss of the Greek pantheon , residing atop Mount Olympus, having supplanted the Titan or older gods in the greek mythogical narrative....
, part of the archaic adjustment of religious cult in Greece, was given an arch anecdotal turn in Ovid

Ovid

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According to Greek myth

Greek mythology

Apollo

Nymph

Bay Laurel

Peneus

Creusa

In Greek mythology, four people had the name Creusa ; the name means simply "princess"....
in Thessaly

Thessaly

Ladon River

The river Ladon features in Greek mythology. It rises in Arcadia, west of Tripoli, Greece. It is a tributary to the river Alfeios River, which empties into the Ionian Sea....
in Arcadia

Arcadia

Arcadia, Arkad?a , or Arcady is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas....
. The pursuit of a local nymph by an Olympian god

Twelve Olympians

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
's Metamorphoses, where the god's infatuation was caused by an arrow from Eros, who wanted to make Apollo pay for making fun of his archery skills and to demonstrate the power of love's arrow. Ovid treats the encounter, Apollo's lapse of majesty, in the mode of elegaic lovers, and expands the pursuit into a series of speeches. Daphne prays for help either to the river god Peneus

Peneus

Gaia

Gaia or Gaea most commonly refers to Gaia , the primal Greek goddess of the earth. But it may also refer to:...
, and is transformed into a laurel (Laurus nobilis): "a heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breast, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy. Only her shining beauty was left." The laurel became sacred to Apollo, and crowned the victors at the Pythian Games

Pythian Games

The Pythian Games were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, a forerunner of the modern Olympic Games, held every four years at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi....
. Most artistic impressions of the myth focus on the moment of transformation. A version of the attempt on Daphne's sworn virginity that has been less familiar since the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
was narrated by the Hellenistic poet Parthenius

Parthenius of Nicaea

Parthenius of Nicaea in Bithynia was a Greeks grammarian and poet. He was taken prisoner by Cinna in the Mithridatic Wars and carried to Rome in 72 BC....
, in his Erotica Pathemata, "The Sorrows of Love". Parthenius' tale was known to Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
, who recounted it in his Description of Greece (second century CE). In this, Daphne is a mortal girl fond of hunting and determined to remain a virgin; she is pursued by the lad Leucippos, who assumes girl's clothes in order to join her band of huntresses. He is so successful in gaining her innocent affection, that Apollo is jealous and puts it into the girl's mind to stop to bathe in the river Ladon; there, as all strip naked, the ruse is revealed, as in the myth of Callisto

Callisto

Callisto can refer to:*Callisto , nymph*Callisto , moon of Jupiter*Callisto , Finnish metal band.*Eclipse #Callisto, version 3.2 of Eclipse, a Java IDE...
, and the huntresses plunge their spears into Leucippos. At this moment Apollo's attention becomes engaged, and he begins his pursuit.

A famous rendition of the subject is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Apollo and Daphne

Apollo and Daphne (Bernini)

Apollo and Daphne is a baroque, life-sized marble sculpture by Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini, housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It was inspired by one of the stories included in Ovid's Metamorphoses....
.

External links

- statue by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini was a pre-eminent Baroque sculpture and architect of 17th Century Rome....