Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

by Stephen Fry

LEUCIPPOS II, DAPHNE, AND APOLLO Interestingly, another myth tells of a different sex-changing LEUCIPPOS—this one a son of OENOMAUS—who fell in love with the naiad DAPHNE, whom Apollo also loved but had not so far wooed or seduced. In order to be near Daphne, this Leucippos disguised himself as a girl and joined her company of nymphs. The jealous Apollo saw this and caused the reeds to whisper to Daphne that she and her attendants should bathe in the river. Accordingly they slipped out of their clothes and splashed about naked. When Leucippos, for obvious reasons, refused to remove his maidenly garb the girls teasingly stripped him bare, discovered his embarrassing and unmistakable secret, and angrily speared him to death. By this time Apollo’s own lustful blood was up. He materialized and began a pursuit of Daphne. The terrified girl leapt out of the river and ran away as fast as she could, but he quickly gained on her. He had almost reached her when she sent up a prayer to her mother, Gaia, and her father, the river god LADON. Just as Apollo closed in and touched her he felt her flesh change under his fingers. A thin bark formed over her breasts, her hair began to slither out into shining yellow and green leaves, her limbs wreathed themselves into branches, and her feet slowly drove down roots into her mother Gaia’s receiving earth. A stupefied Apollo found that he was clutching not a naiad but a laurel tree. For once in his life the god was chastened. The laurel became ...