When we at the eCool Compound are not dedicating our time to work, food, or sleep, we’re often talking about ancient myths. We love to hear the stories of the gods and goddesses told–and we also love to recount them to enthusiastic audiences. And so, in order to indulge our mythological mania, we’re starting a new series of posts dubbed “Myth Remastered.” It is our hope that this series will give us a good excuse to recount our own slightly remixed versions of the titillating tales and will also remind readers of the masterworks of Roman art and architecture that embody the stories.
We inaugurate the series today with a retelling of the story behind Gianlorenzo Bernini’s famous sculpture of Apollo & Daphne in Rome’s Galleria Borghese:
With his cherubic face and his teenage sense of humor, Cupid was a god who spent most of his time doing the bidding of his mother, Venus. In fulfilling her lusty missions, his weapons of choice were the bow and arrow, and to his credit, the teen god shot his darts with uncanny accuracy. In fact, ancient Romans feared being the target of Cupid’s arrows—and for good reason. His quiver was filled with both gold- and lead-tipped projectiles and both types of arrows left their victim utterly unable to control their emotions.
Pierced by the immortal marksman’s golden-tipped arrows, one would fall into a life of blissful romance and true love. But that almost never happened. More commonly, Cupid fired off blunt, leaden projectiles. Those struck by the dull darts were destined to chase wildly after the very person who would be utterly repulsed by their affections.
Ovid, a Roman poet of the first century BC, informs us that Cupid even went so far as to shoot his arrows at other gods. The poet gleefully tells of an event that occurred one afternoon, as Cupid was hanging out on Mount Parnassus with Apollo, the god of arts and the overseer of hunting and healing. As the deities go, Apollo was an all-around good guy, well liked by his fellow immortals, and on this particular day, he and Cupid were teasing each other in the way that boy gods so often do. Being the elder of the two, Apollo was inflicting insults on Cupid, mocking the small size and puny power of the younger god’s arrows, while boasting that his own projectiles were necessarily longer and more potent, because he used them to hunt and kill wild animals.
Audibly sighing and rolling his eyes, Cupid refused to return the insults, and so Apollo became bored of the verbal sparring and headed out for a real hunt. But, as Apollo turned from Cupid, the little love-god’s parting remark left the older (but perhaps not wiser) deity worrying about what might befall him:
Your bow, Apollo,
May conquer all, but mine shall conquer you.
As every creature yields to power divine
So likewise shall your glory yield to mine.
These lines are commonly translated as:
Dude.
You may be bigger than me,
but I’ve got ways of getting even.
The vengeful Cupid began to look for the right opportunity to get back at Apollo. Soon he spied an extraordinarily beautiful nymph named Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus. Cupid had known Daphne a long time and so he was aware that like so many other girls in the region, she had given her life and her virtue to Apollo’s virginal twin sister, the goddess Diana, and had taken a vow of chastity that prohibited her from making love to a man. Slyly, Cupid pondered what might happen if Apollo were to fall madly in love with such an honorable nymph.
And so, with spiteful wrath (this is not your usual Hallmark god), Cupid reached into his quiver and carefully selected two arrows with opposing powers —gold-tipped one that set its victim’s heart aflame with love, and a lead-tipped one that would extinguish any amorous desire in its target. Pulling his bowstring taut, Cupid aimed the gold-tipped projectile at Apollo. As the arrow took flight, it glistened in the afternoon sun and then embedded itself deeply into his heart. Next, he loaded the dull, lead-tipped arrow into his bow, and shot it at the chaste Daphne, knowing that it would cause her to utterly reject Apollo’s arrow-provoked amour.
Hiding in the shadow of Mount Parnassus, Cupid watched his handiwork unfold. As Apollo ran through the woods, he spotted the lovely Daphne in the distance. As he began to move closer to her, his body was inflamed with love and desire. Gaining ground on the nymph, he called out to her:
Stay, Sweet nymph! Oh stay! I am no foe to fear.
(“Hey, I’m Apollo. You are so beautiful! Haven’t we met somewhere before?”)
When Apollo grew yet nearer to Daphne, she noticed his flushed face and recognized his intentions in an instant. The nymph turned and took flight, but Apollo continued his chase, calling out again:
I’m the lord of Delphi. I am the son of Jupiter. By me
Things future, past and present are revealed;
I shape the harmony of songs and strings.
(“I’m an artist!
I can recite poetry!
My father is very important…
Let’s just go for a coffee and get to know each other, OK?)
Hearing this, Daphne quickened her pace, for Cupid’s lead-tipped arrow had made the very sight of the god repulsive to her. But Apollo sped up and rapidly gained ground on Daphne. As he closed the gap between them, the nymph was compelled to take drastic measures. Ahead, in the distance, she saw the swift river Peneus (who also happened to be her father) and she called out to him in despair:
Help, Father, help!
(Help, Father, help!)
Daphne begged her father to take from her the very thing that Apollo most desired—her beauty. In that divine moment Daphne’s prayers were answered. As Apollo—who was only a half a step behind the nymph—reached out to grab the torso of his sweet prize, he realized that something was amiss. Expecting to feel the soft, smooth skin of a young maiden, he grasped the tough, crusted bark of a tree instead! A metamorphosis was underway: Daphne’s father had saved her by turning her into a tree! As Apollo stood watching with dismay, bark began to envelope Daphne’s skin, her hair turned to branches bearing fresh green leaves, and her toes took root and embedded themselves in the earth. In a matter of seconds, the young and beautiful Daphne was no more.
Apollo was stunned to discover that the girl he so loved had become a laurel tree (in Greek called a daphne), but he swore his allegiance nonetheless. He could feel the beating of her heart through the rough bark that now covered her body, and so he delicately plucked leaves from her branches and crowned his head, proclaiming:
At least, sweet laurel, you shall be my tree.
(You look good, but there goes my Saturday night!)
Fast forward to the seventeenth century: the young sculptor, Gianlorenzo Bernini is commissioned to depict Daphne’s miraculous metamorphosis in a life-size marble sculpture for art collector and Cardinal Nephew, Scipione Borghese. The commission presented Bernini with two challenges: first, there was the difficulty of demonstrating the transformation of a human body in a material as hard and unyielding as marble; second, the sculptor was to compete with the story’s ancient author, giving visual form to Ovid’s inspiring poetry.
Despite these difficulties, Bernini’s incomparable talent enabled him to create a sculpture that evokes the tension of the chase, Daphne’s fear, and the wonder of the bodily metamorphosis. His sculpture leaves the viewer in breathless awe, for it embodies the process by which Daphne’s human form was transformed into that of a tree. Shaped by Bernini’s chisel, marble is no longer a cold, hard material, but becomes soft, pliable, and clay-like—a substance that can be modeled into human flesh, tree bark, curly hair, and crisp new leaves.
The seventeenth-century public was stunned by Bernini’s rendition of this story. Though Apollo’s love remained unrequited, Bernini’s sculpture won him the adoration of the Romans, who began to salute the twenty-something sculptor in the streets with the title of “maestro.”
