When Life Gives You Lemons: Add Vodka And Chill: Apollo and Daphne

Pubilius Ovidius Naso was a Roman poet who was born on the 20th of March 43 BCE. He is more famously known as Ovid. He has written several classical pieces of poetry that have endured the centuries. The Metamorphoses of Ovid is without a doubt one of his best. It is a long collection of different stories, but it also holds one of my absolute favorites, a favorite that is the beginning of love poetry; Apollo and Daphne.

I don't know if any of you have ever studied the Classical period or mythology. Before I knew anything about it I thought mythology was this intense fantasy created to keep people entertained. But it is so much more then that and all the time I spend digging into their world I am more and more fascinated. Because you have to remember that these were the Gods to the people. They were meticulously molded out of their society and the Gods, compared to other societies at the time were different, because the Roman and Greek Gods were molded after people, with human emotions and actions. That of course tells for a great story. And anyone who studies literature knows stories are more then facts and opinions, they help answer some of life's greatest questions and they teach us lessons sometimes with out even knowing.

Now Ovid wrote a poem, Bernini sculpted a beautiful masterpiece, and I fell in love.

It is not a long story, but I will still tell it in a nut shell. Apollo is the sun god, the god of the arts, truth, archery, prophecy, healing, plague and many others. This is the story of his first love.

After a huge victory, in an arrogant and boisterous manner, he taunts a young man with a little arrow. Of course Apollo is the god of archery, so he feels that this little man is being silly and ridiculous, and puts him down. Apollo being a mighty god could not stop what would happen next. For the young man he was making fun of was Cupid. Cupid wanted to teach Apollo a lesson, so he hit him with an arrow, and made him fall in love with Daphne.

Daphne on the other hand is the daughter of a minor river god. She is a naturally beautiful wood nymph who spends all her time in the forest. She becomes so devote to the forest that she wishes to stay a virgin, and be like the god Diana, who is a virgin, and coincidently Apollo's sister. She begs her father to let her stay a virgin (during those days a daughter's virginity was in the hand of her father's). Although with much dismay, because this means he wont have grandchildren, he does abide to her wishes. So Daphne, who never wants to love, will forever stay a virgin. In turn she gets the other arrow from cupid, except it is not to love Apollo, but to run from him.

After Apollo professes countless lines of beautiful poetry for his love for Daphne, he begins to pursue her. Of course Daphne, who shutters at the very word of lover, runs at the sight of Apollo. And here the two begin to race through the forest. Daphne begins to realize she cannot win, she asks her father to help her in whatever possible way he can. The moment before Apollo catches her, Daphne starts to grow roots with her body. Her limbs transform into branches and leaves, and in mere seconds becomes a Laurel tree. Apollo stands there hugging the tree, devoting himself to that very tree, and it is then on when anyone ever encounters sport or educational victory, they win their Laurel branches.

A story of passion, devotion, and unrequited love. A story about the power of love and how one cannot escape it and that it triumphs even the mightiest of gods. It is a beautiful poem. And to make it feel more real, Bernini has created a masterpiece conveying the very highest climax of their story: