Discovery Drafts

The lyre Hermes gave Apollo He fashioned From a tortoise shell.  Once a water nymph Who declined An invitation  To the wedding Of Zeus and Hera, This child who Took lightly the life force Became the instrument Of angelic sound.  When Apollo’s Golden hands Touched those strings, They sang the story  Of water, Earth, Air and light, Made Apollo God of music And redeemer of a wild girl Who would follow The course of her own mind But could not-- Or maybe did-- With Hermes’s help.

Who wouldn’t want The arms of A poet A healer A seer A sun god Wrapped around her? To be safe Secure Beautiful Chosen Filled with the promise of life? Who wouldn’t? Daphne. Pursued by Apollo She prayed to her river god father To keep her Out of Apollo’s reach. Hearing her cry, Peneus Empowered her to become The laurel tree Forever. And the sun god lifted her up Sang her song Healed his own broken heart Ended her fear: Made her story one of boundless Imagination, The kind we call love.

Boasting of his defeating Python and establishing his oracle at Delphi, the son god Apollo tells Cupid to put away his bow and arrows because there is no way the son of Venus could match the son of Zeus as an archer. Like his mother, Cupid has a quick temper, and he means to bring down Apollo for his arrogance.  To settle the score, he fires a golden arrow into Apollo to quicken love and a leaden arrow in to the beautiful Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus, to deaden love. So of course Apollo falls in love with Daphne and pursues her.  He begs her to stop running from him, declaring:  “I am/the one who has invented medicine,/but now there is no herb to cure my passion; my art, which helps all men, can’t heal its master.” But Daphne will remain a virgin.  She doesn’t want whatever Apollo has to offer.  She runs on until Apollo is within reach of her, when she begs her father, “‘Help me, dear father; if the river-gods/have any power, then transform, dissolve/my gracious shape