Daphne’s Laurel Leaves — How History Wrote the Man’s Story, Again
There’s something wrong with wearing laurel leaves for victory
In Athens by Thesiou metro station, street vendors, their balding pates topped with golden crowns of laurel leaves, display headbands of the same for purchase. I look at the crowns with disappointment — knowing the story of laurel leaves leaves a bitter taste. Like much of history, this is a story of patriarchy and appropriation.
Apollo, the God of Light, bragged to Eros that his bow (that’s right, his bow) was bigger than that of the Cupid’s. A show of toxic masculinity ensues, and Eros shoots Apollo with an arrow that causes him to fall madly in love with the first being he sees. That is Daphne, the nymph, who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this, and who was just swimming by, minding her own nymphly business. To make things more entertaining for Eros, he shoots Daphne with a lead arrow, causing her to be utterly disinterested in Apollo’s advances. This wasn’t even necessary. Just because Apollo was a god doesn’t mean women were climbing over each other to get inside his toga. Daphne had in fact, taken a vow of chastity. She was living for herself. Eros could have left enough alone and she would still have been disinterested.
Apollo, in his erotomania, pursues Daphne relentlessly in spite of her protestations. He didn’t understand that όχι means όχι.
Daphne retreats to her father Peneus, the river god, who in order to ‘save’ her, turns her into a laurel tree.
Father, help me! If you streams have heavenly power, change me! Destroy my beauty which has brought too much delight!” Scarcely has she made this plea, when she feels a heavy numbness move across her limbs, her soft breasts are enclosed by slender bark, her hair turns to leaves, her arms to branches, her feet, so swift a moment before, stick fast in sluggish roots, a covering of foliage spreads across her face. All that remains of her is her shining beauty.
— Ovid, Metamorphoses
History has once again made a woman into an inanimate, unspeaking object — a canvas upon which men project their desires.
Let’s pause for a moment and consider that Daphne was just doing Daphne when the actions of three men result in her getting turned into a tree. What kind of first-line defense is this from her father? How about standing up to Apollo first? What about getting Eros to answer for his actions? How is it that Daphne is the one who loses in all of this by having to sacrifice her life and her body, just to be left alone?
From here, the story only gets worse. Apollo still doesn’t get the message. Daphne has done everything nymphly possible to get away from him. She has essentially committed suicide, and is now a plant. Apollo continues on his erotomaniacal path. He forces himself upon Daphne’s tree body, making her leaves evergreen, claiming that this honours her.
For Gaia’s sake, Apollo, she just wants you to leave her alone.
Still unsatiated, Apollo does the most inappropriate thing conceivable. He uproots the Daphne tree, plants it beside his temple, and wears laurel leaves on his head as if the remnants of Daphne’s body are a decoration. Apollo then creates the Pythian games ‘in Daphne’s honour’, where the winners are awarded a crown of laurel leaves.
That’s right, Apollo gives pieces of Daphne’s body away as trophies. The Pythian games are not for Daphne, they are for Apollo to feel sorry for himself; to reinforce his belief that this poor, lonely, lovesick god is the one who suffers, because the woman he was pursuing wasn’t interested in him, and is no longer available because she left behind her body to get away from him.
Meanwhile, I wonder where Eros and Peneus stand in all of this.
Ovid writes in the Metamorphoses:
Fairest of maidens, you are lost to me. But at least you shall be my tree. With your leaves my victors shall wreathe their brows. You shall have your part in all my triumphs. Apollo and his laurel shall be joined together wherever songs are sung and stories told.
Excuse me? My tree? His laurel? Apollo claims Daphne in her nymph form without her consent. In desperation, she neutralizes herself by becoming vegetation, and then he still claims possession of her? Then here’s the kicker — he now appropriates her body to represent victory for the participants of his games. This would be like if someone committed suicide out of terror of a pursuer, and the pursuer then wears a lock of her hair to show how much he suffers. The pursuer then rallies his fans to compete in his name to win more locks of hair.
Shouldn’t laurel leaves be the symbol of Daphne’s legacy? Instead, history rewards Apollo, the man who drove a woman to the end of her known existence, then used the woman’s transformed body for his own purposes, casting himself as the woeful, lovelorn victim for the world to see his devotion.
In tree or nymph form, Daphne’s body doesn’t even represent herself. When people see laurel leaves, they don’t think of her, but of the man who purportedly loved her, and of the meaning he decided they should have.
What does Daphne have to say about all of this? Nobody knows. She doesn’t have a voice now that she’s a tree. History is written by the victors.
