Apollo and Daphne
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Apollo, god of archers, music, prophecy and light, was very powerful, but not always fortunate in love. His first love was the nymph Daphne, but she rejected him. The violent passion of Apollo and the resistance of Daphne came about because Eros (Cupid), angered by Apollo’s mockery, shot him with a golden arrow to make him fall in love with her, while he aimed a leaden arrow at Daphne so that she would reject him. Apollo pursued Daphne with every manner of amorous plea, all of which she refused, until they reached the banks of the river Peneus. There, at the very moment he was about to catch her, she called out to her father, the river god, who transformed her into a laurel tree. Apollo was left dumbstruck. Unlike his father Zeus, Apollo accepted rejections, though at times his revenge was terrible. For example, when the Sibyl Deiphobe rejected him — despite his offering her as many years of life as grains of earth she could gather — he grew so angry that he granted her a thousand more years of life… but without eternal youth! She spent the rest of her days shut inside a jar, at Cumae, never to be granted her one wish: death.