bite, and leaves behind the mouth {just} touching her. {And} so is the God, and {so} is the virgin;[83] he swift with hopes, she with fear. Yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and denies her {any} rest; and is {now} just at her back as she flies, and is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck. Her strength being {now} spent, she grows pale, and being quite faint, with the fatigue of so swift a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, "Give me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers have divine power. Oh Earth, either yawn {to swallow me}, or by changing it, destroy that form, by which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured." Hardly had she ended her prayer, {when} a heavy torpor seizes her limbs; {and} her 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 {leafy} canopy overspreads her features; her elegance alone[84] remains in her. This, too, Phoebus admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and {then}, embracing the branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and} yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: "But since thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my lyre,[85] my 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,[86] and the long procession shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same, shalt stand as a most faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,[87] 66 and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is {ever} youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting honors of thy foliage." Paean had ended {his speech}; the laurel nodded assent with its new-made boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head. [Footnote 73:
The Delian God.--Ver. 454. Apollo is so called, from having been born in the Isle of Delos, in the AEgean Sea. The Peneus was a river of Thessaly.] [Footnote 74:
A fillet tied together.--Ver. 477. The 'vitta' was a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but the 'vitta' assumed on the day of marriage was of a different form from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light character, or even by the 'libertinae,' or female slaves who had been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of chastity, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and purple are mentioned. In the later ages the 'vitta' was sometimes set with pearls.] [Footnote 75:
Hymen.--Ver. 480. Hymen, or Hymenaeus, was one of the Gods of Marriage; hence the name 'Hymen' was given to the union of two persons in marriage.] [Footnote 76:
The nuptial torch.--Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us, that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband. 67 Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,-- 'Vivimus inter utramque facem,' 'We are living between the two torches.' Originally, the 'taedae' seem to have been slips or lengths of resinous pine wood: while the 'fax' was formed of a bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493 to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller, who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.] [Footnote 77:
Here in rude guise.--Ver. 514. 'Non hic armenta gregesve Horridus observo' is quaintly translated by Clarke, 'I do not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.'] [Footnote 78:
Claros and Tenedos.--Ver. 516. Claros was a city of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the AEgean Sea, in the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from Patara that St. Paul took ship for Phoenicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.] [Footnote 79:
The properties of simples.--Ver. 522. The first 68 cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for allegorically saying that Apollo, or the Sun, was the discoverer of the healing art.] [Footnote 80:
Ah! wretched me!--Ver. 523. A similar expression occurs in the Heroides, v. 149, 'Me miseram, quod amor non est medicabilis herbis.'] [Footnote 81:
The youthful God.--Ver. 531. Apollo was always represented as a youth, and was supposed never to grow old. The Scholiast on the Thebais of Statius, b. i., v. 694, says, 'The reason is, because Apollo is the Sun; and because the Sun is fire, which never grows old.' Perhaps the youthfulness of the Deity is here mentioned, to account for his ardent pursuit of the flying damsel.] [Footnote 82:
As when the greyhound.--Ver. 533. The comparison here of the flight of Apollo after Daphne, to that of the greyhound after the hare, is considered to be very beautifully drawn, and to give an admirable illustration of the eagerness with which the God pursues on the one hand, and the anxiety with which the Nymph endeavors to escape on the other. Pope, in his Windsor Forest, has evidently imitated this passage, where he describes the Nymph Lodona pursued by Pan, and transformed into a river. His words are-- 69 'Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky; Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, When through the clouds he drives the trembling doves; As from the God she flew with furious pace, Or as the God more furious urged the chase. Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears; Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears; And now his shadow reach'd her as she run, His shadow lengthened by the setting sun; And now his shorter breath, with sultry air, Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.' The greyhound was probably called 'canis Gallicus,' from having been originally introduced into Italy from Gaul. 'Vertagus' was their Gallic name, which we find used by Martial, and Gratian in his Cynegeticon, ver. 203.] [Footnote 83:
And so is the virgin.--Ver. 539. 'Sic Deus et virgo est' is translated by Clarke, 'So is the God and the young lady;' indeed, he mostly translates 'virgo,' 'young lady.'] [Footnote 84:
Her elegance alone.--Ver. 552. Clarke translates 'Remanet nitor unus in illa,' 'her neatness alone continues in her.'] [Footnote 85:
My lyre.--Ver. 559. The players of the cithara, the instrument of Apollo, were crowned with laurel, in the scenic 70 representations of the stage.] [Footnote 86:
The song of triumph.--Ver. 560. The Poet here pays a compliment to Augustus and the Roman people. The laurel was the emblem of victory among the Romans. On such occasions the 'fasces' of the general and the spears and javelins of the soldiers were wreathed with laurel; and after the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman general, when triumphing, wore a laurel wreath on his head, and held a branch of laurel in his hand.] [Footnote 87:
Before his doors.--Ver. 562. He here alludes to the civic crown of oak leaves which, by order of the Senate, was placed before the gate of the Palatium, where Augustus Caesar resided, with branches of laurel on either side of it.] EXPLANATION. 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. 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's sight. Some laurels growing near the spot, perhaps gave rise to the story of her transformation; or possibly the 71 etymology of the word 'Daphne,' 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 OEnomaus, 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. 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
