Apollo and Daphne
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These pictures are both in the same theme. The first remembrance of Apollo's Daphne, her once beautiful body changed forever into a laurel tree. The next is the renaissance statue by Bernini, now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The story had Apollo catching sight of a beautiful nymph, and believing that she should be his, and so he besought her and tried to win her for his own. But cruel luck befell him, for she was frightened of him and fled from his advances, until he was forced to chase after her through the woods. When he was finally closing in, she called out to her father for his support, called out to the river god for him to sheild her from her besieger. And so, she was sheilded from him and turned into a laurel tree, just as Apollo catches her, much to his great misery. But, in the end, he got his heart's desire, for in her new form she was always still, always there, and he could always come up to her and be with her. After, he took a branch of her tree and wore it as a wreath about his head, himself and her linked as one. A wonderful example of one's own desire fulfilled in a way never imagined.

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All literary work Copyright ©2003 A W Wharton, Ont., Canada