Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Let's talk about myths. Baby. My
Speaker 1: name is Live and I'm here to talk to you
Speaker 1: all about the batcheck crazy mythology of the ancient Greeks.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is a mini myth where I just give
Speaker 1: you a quick little rundown on a one of the
Speaker 1: many fun, short little myths of ancient Greece, Daphne the
Speaker 1: nymph who said Hell no Apollo. So, guys, for once,
Speaker 1: I have a story about a nymph who turned down
Speaker 1: to God, and that god was not Zeus. It's pretty momentous.
Speaker 1: I think it was, of course, though Zeus son. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Apollo is the god of music and the sun and
Speaker 1: also the plague. For some reason I don't totally understand,
Speaker 1: he was one of the most powerful gods of great
Speaker 1: mythology because he was one of the Olympians. Now, I
Speaker 1: haven't actually had much of a chance to cover gods
Speaker 1: that weren't the Olympians yet, but trust me, there are lots,
Speaker 1: and they were less powerful than the Olympians. One day,
Speaker 1: Apollo was feeling a little shall we say, impish, and
Speaker 1: he decided to get a little snippy with the god Arrows,
Speaker 1: who's the god of love. He's the son of Aphrodite,
Speaker 1: and Cupid is what the Romans called him, which you
Speaker 1: might know a little more. But to clarify this, arrow slash,
Speaker 1: Cupid was an adult man. Apollo wasn't making fun of
Speaker 1: a baby or anything weird like that. So Apollo mocks
Speaker 1: Arrows for using a bow and arrow, which I don't
Speaker 1: totally understand because bows and arrows are pretty cool. I mean,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't mock Lego less or Catanus. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So Apoulo mocks arrow saying, according to Wikipedia, what are
Speaker 1: you doing with powerful weapons, naughty boy, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty weird thing to say, I have to admit. It
Speaker 1: also sounds like he's conceding that the weapons are powerful.
Speaker 1: So frankly, I don't totally understand where the insult came in,
Speaker 1: but there you have it. Arrows felt insulted. Apollo continued
Speaker 1: by rambling on about something or other. But whoever put
Speaker 1: it into Wikipedia used like a really weird translation or something,
Speaker 1: because frankly, it doesn't make much sense, so I won't
Speaker 1: repeat it. The point is Arrows was not happy. He
Speaker 1: felt he was being insulted. Now, if the gods are
Speaker 1: good for anything, it's creative vengeance, and this is an
Speaker 1: awesome example of that. Arrows angry about being insulted by Apollo,
Speaker 1: whips out two of his fancy magic arrows. He takes
Speaker 1: one of the arrows, a gold one, and he shoots Apollo.
Speaker 1: This makes Apollo fall truly madly, deeply in love with
Speaker 1: a nymph named Daphne, who was just by coincidence nearby.
Speaker 1: He is quite suddenly obsessed, like creepy obsessed. This nymph,
Speaker 1: who was frankly at the wrong place at the wrong time,
Speaker 1: is subsequently hit by the other arrow, which was made
Speaker 1: of lead. This, on top of probably giving her a
Speaker 1: nasty case of lead poisoning, also made her loathe Apollo.
Speaker 1: It's like an opposite arrow, I guess, and loathe him like.
Speaker 1: Not only does she find his sudden obsession with her
Speaker 1: fairly creepy and a psycho stalker waiting to happen, but
Speaker 1: she also just magically finds him utterly repulsive. And Apollo
Speaker 1: was a pretty hot god, so it's a powerful leaden
Speaker 1: arrow now. Daphne, even before being hit by the lead arrow,
Speaker 1: was unlikely to appreciate Apollo's attention. She was a devotee
Speaker 1: of Apollo's twin sister Artemis, who was a very proud
Speaker 1: and very stringent virgin. Daphne was to a virgin. She
Speaker 1: apparently rejected many a man and instead enjoyed woodland sports
Speaker 1: and hiking in the forest. I'm not sure what woodland
Speaker 1: sports are, but they sound very nymphesque. As an emulator
Speaker 1: of Artemis, Daphne was helped bent on staying away from
Speaker 1: men and remaining a virgin. Given the way women were
Speaker 1: treated in ancient Greece and particularly Greek mythology, I don't
Speaker 1: blame her, I mean, you do you girl. There was
Speaker 1: a time when Daphne's father was pressuring her to marry
Speaker 1: so that he could have grandchildren. She was basically just like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, dad, that's not the life I want. She
Speaker 1: made such a great argument that he relented, which I
Speaker 1: think is pretty impressive for an ancient Greek man. Well done,
Speaker 1: Daphne's dad. So that's all to say that this very
Speaker 1: awesome and independent woman had to deal with an Olympian
Speaker 1: god who was obsessed with fucking her, and now she
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to get away. As we
Speaker 1: learned with Zeus's many troubling tales, it's often near impossible
Speaker 1: to say no to a god when they've decided they
Speaker 1: want you. So that's fun, as if it's not hard
Speaker 1: enough with regular humans. So Apollo starts following her NonStop,
Speaker 1: just begging her to stay with him and just be
Speaker 1: with him, and she's continually ignoring him. She just keeps
Speaker 1: going about her business. I like to believe that in
Speaker 1: she'd be one of the many women out there wearing
Speaker 1: headphones with no music playing and holding her keys in
Speaker 1: her hands. Apparently they were pretty evenly matched for quite
Speaker 1: a while too. Daphne, being a badass, managed to keep
Speaker 1: away from Apollo until that's right, another man gets involved
Speaker 1: for reasons beyond understanding. Eros now decides he wants to
Speaker 1: help Apollo catch Daphne, as if this wasn't entirely his
Speaker 1: fault in the first place. If you hear a weird
Speaker 1: sound in the background, that's my cat's incredibly loud purring.
Speaker 1: He will not leave me alone. You're welcome so now,
Speaker 1: because as of stupid arrows, who suddenly wants to help
Speaker 1: Apollo be creepy, Apoul gains on Daphne and she knows
Speaker 1: he's going to catch her. Now if you ignore the
Speaker 1: whole mythology, like this is outside of reality, you know,
Speaker 1: this is off in a whole other world, and all
Speaker 1: those aspects of this. It's really scary, Like this is
Speaker 1: a woman who has repeatedly rejected a man and he
Speaker 1: won't take no for an answer, and he's chasing her
Speaker 1: and about to catch her. That's just the creepiest thing ever.
Speaker 1: And of course there is only one way out for
Speaker 1: women in agent mythology who didn't want a particular god
Speaker 1: who had set his sights on her. Daphne had to
Speaker 1: call out for her father, you know, the one had
Speaker 1: been a good enough person to at least let her
Speaker 1: stay single. Her father, though, was also a god of rivers,
Speaker 1: because she's an infant, that's how that works. So she
Speaker 1: calls out her father, this river god, and she actually
Speaker 1: asks him to open up the earth and swallow her whole,
Speaker 1: because that is how badly she doesn't want Apollo to
Speaker 1: catch her. It's really quite depressing, to be honest. But
Speaker 1: he doesn't open up the earth. He's a bit more
Speaker 1: creative than that. Suddenly, a heavy numbness seizes Daphne and
Speaker 1: she stops at her place. Slowly, her body becomes covered
Speaker 1: in a thin bark, and her hair begins to turn
Speaker 1: to leaves. Her arms transform into branches, and her legs
Speaker 1: fused together while her feet sprout out into roots. Her
Speaker 1: fingertips become twigs reaching off her branch arms, leaves dangling
Speaker 1: at the ends, and the next thing she knows, she's
Speaker 1: a laurel tree. Apollo is still in love with this
Speaker 1: woman who wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, and
Speaker 1: who he forced into transforming herself into a tree. I mean,
Speaker 1: he could have just fucked off, but he refused. And
Speaker 1: now he uses his fancy powers of eternal youth and
Speaker 1: immortality and he makes it so that tree Daphne will
Speaker 1: remain evergreen. And for this reason, the leaves of the
Speaker 1: bay Laurel tree don't decay, which I didn't actually know,
Speaker 1: so thanks mythology. Paul also takes to wearing laurel around
Speaker 1: his head like a crown, and that becomes his thing
Speaker 1: the way you can easily identify Apollo. Frankly, what an
Speaker 1: awful way to acquire your token identifier by scaring a
Speaker 1: woman into transforming herself into a tree. You're a good dude, Apollo.
Speaker 1: Now this story comes with a strong, strong recommendation there's
Speaker 1: a piece of art by Jean Lorenzo Bernini, and it
Speaker 1: is one of the most incredible sculptures are created, like ever,
Speaker 1: I dare you to propose something more beautiful. I'm going
Speaker 1: to post a picture of it on the Instagram, but
Speaker 1: you should google it too, because just my god, it's
Speaker 1: the most incredible when you've actually seen it in person,
Speaker 1: because walking around it is like witnessing magic. I swear
Speaker 1: it depicts Apollo just as he's caught up to Daphne
Speaker 1: and she's in the midst of transforming into this tree.
Speaker 1: So from the front it looks like Apollo is grasping
Speaker 1: onto her almost affectionately, though her face looks a lot
Speaker 1: more like the shocked emoji. But from the back, he's
Speaker 1: got his arms around a tree, like you can't tell
Speaker 1: that it's not a tree all the way around. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's bonkers. It's still because we chills and I saw
Speaker 1: it like in like two thousand nine. Seriously, go to Rome,
Speaker 1: go to the gallery of Bar Gazy and just check
Speaker 1: it out. My heart just aches thinking about it. I
Speaker 1: feel I should add a little clarification point at this stage.
Speaker 1: I love Greek mythology. I feel like all I do
Speaker 1: now is bitch about the way that men I feel
Speaker 1: like all I do now is point out how awful
Speaker 1: the men were, and you know they were. Let's be
Speaker 1: perfectly honest, but just to make perfectly clear, like I
Speaker 1: love this. It is wonderful. The idea, like the stuff
Speaker 1: they came up with, it's so incredible, like that's how
Speaker 1: Laurel Tree exists, Like I don't get it, but it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this mini myth as usual.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at miss Baby. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram and at miths Baby. I
Speaker 1: now have a new website, miths baby dot com. You
Speaker 1: can see the way I'm going with this. There's Facebook
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Speaker 1: on iTunes and Google Play and Stitcher and SoundCloud and
Speaker 1: you should probably listen on i Tunes, are Stitcher. Just
Speaker 1: saying please rate and review. It would make me incredibly
Speaker 1: happy to hear from people who are listening to this.
Speaker 1: Drop me a line if you're listening and you liked it,
Speaker 1: tweet at me whatever. I'm just would be really happy
Speaker 1: to hear from anyone who's enjoying this podcast. Or has
Speaker 1: any suggestions, tips, tricks, anything, and he suggested myth you
Speaker 1: want to hear just shouted out thank you again. My
Speaker 1: name is Live. I love this ship.