17th centuy Italian, after Caravaggio
from The Greek Myths (rev. 1960)
k. Apollo was not invariably successful in love. On one occasion he tried to steal Marpessa from Idas, but she remained true to her husband. On another, he pursued Daphne, the mountain nymph, a priestess of Mother Earth, daughter of the river Peneius in Thessaly; but when he overtook her, she cried out to Mother Earth who, in the nick of time, spirited her away to Crete, where she became known as Pasiphaë. Mother Earth left a laurel-tree in her place, and from its leaves Apollo made a wreath to console himself.
l. His attempt on Daphne, it must be added, was no sudden impulse. He had long been in love with her, and had brought about the death of his rival, Leucippus, son of Oenomaus, who disguised himself as a girl and joined Daphne’s mountain revels. Apollo, knowing of this by divination, advised the mountain nymphs to bathe naked, and thus make sure that everyone in their company was a woman; Leucippus’s imposture was at once discovered, and the nymphs tore him to pieces.
m. There was also the case of the beautiful youth Hyacinthus, a Spartan prince, with whom not only the poet Thamyris fell in love—the first man who ever wooed one of his own sex—but Apollo himself, the first god to do so. Apollo did not find Thamyris a serious rival; having overheard his boast that he could surpass the Muses in song, he maliciously reported it to them, and they at once robbed Thamyris of his sight, his voice, and his memory for harping. But the West Wind had also taken a fancy to Hyacinthus, and became, insanely jealous of Apollo, who was one day teaching the boy how to hurl a discus, when the West Wind caught it in mid-air, dashed it against Hyacinthus’s skull, and killed him. From his blood sprang the hyacinth flower, on which his initial letters are still to be traced.
