March 27th, 2015 -- by Bacchus
Tree, With Breasts
Readers with even a trace of classical education will recognize this as a moment in the story of Daphne and Apollo, the rapey tale of a god who so persistently stalked an unwilling nymph that she begged for (and got) divine intervention that turned her into a tree:
What’s interesting about this particular medallion image is that it captures Daphne just as her “limbs” have turned to actual limbs and roots, while the rest of her body remains (as yet) unchanged. I don’t know how Apollo would have felt, but I’m sure there are fetishists out there who would have been delighted if the transformation stopped right there. I suspect Apollo himself would have preferred it!
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Anyone who’s into that will probably really enjoy Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture _Apollo e Dafne_ (completed 1625)
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No picture can really do it justice (I saw it “in the stone” as a child), but the Wikimedia picture does show some of the appearing bark, branches, and roots, if you look.
There were quite a few other ladies changed into trees in Greek times, Pitys, Dryope and Lotis, for example. Others were changed into other plants such as Syrinx, Hyacinth (a male lover of Apollo) and the possibly recent invention of Acantha.
the woodblock print depicts this line from book 1 of the Metamorphoses:
in frondem crines, in ramos bracchia crescunt, 550
pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret,
ora cacumen habet: remanet nitor unus in illa.
“The hair grows into foliage, and the arms into branches.
The foot, only once so swift, holds fast with lazy roots.
The tree’s crown betrays her face; one charm remains in her.”