OK - this bit shows that even in this humans question the gods and try to get some sense that relates to their viewpoint.
Not talking about this bit only using it as the example of how humans question the gods and how they handle satisfying an understanding that fits their viewpoint.
For a long time they stand there, dumbfounded. Pyrrha is first to break the silence: she refuses to obey the goddess’s command. Her lips trembling she asks for pardon, fearing to offend her mother’s spirit by scattering her bones. Meanwhile they reconsider the dark words the oracle gave, and their uncertain meaning, turning them over and over in their minds. Then Prometheus’s son comforted Epimetheus’s daughter with quiet words: ‘Either this idea is wrong, or, since oracles are godly and never urge evil, our great mother must be the earth: I think the bones she spoke about are stones in the body of the earth. It is these we are told to throw behind us.’
OK before we have Cupid darting Apollo we have as Kline transcribes "And though fire and water fight each other, heat and moisture create everything, and this discordant union is suitable for growth."
And so I am seeing that the fire of desire darted into Apollo
"You should be intent on
stirring the concealed fires of love with your burning brand, not laying claim to my glories!’ Venus’s son replied ‘You may hit every other thing Phoebus, (Apollo) but my bow will strike you: to the degree that all living creatures are less than gods, by that degree is your glory less than mine.’"
Cupid is saying here that he has the power to infuse the fires of love with his arrows or darts as some translate it. He is suggesting this fire of love is within all living creatures and therefore, are the gods, less than.
These gods are written as so many today write about a single God that has the qualities of a man even though no one has ever seen God - the single God today is described as anything from kind, loving to punitive, threatening or unreliable. All aspects that man can understand and have attributed to God. Therefore, it is not too outlandish to see that the Roman and Greek Gods were fashioned by the behavior of man that was understood at the time.
Marriage was not based on love till the twelfth century - Courtly love that started in the 9th and 10th century was about a young man obsessed with an older, married women - the more pleasing his gifts of song, writing poetry to her and starving himself to show his passion were expressed he was considered more besotted espressing courtly love - during this time the marriage was performed by the father uniting his daughter for the sole purpose of procrastination. And so she had to be enticed or commanded. Remember Shakespeare makes this into a comedy of behavior in
Taming of the Shrew later to become a musical
Kiss Me Kate.
Also, we had during this time frame, words from Aristotle saying, that being unmarried was the higher order - as to the concept of marriage vows shared with a priest present - in the early church we have virginity being extolled some asked for the presence of a priest only to bless what was considered sinful since the Church too thought if Jesus was unmarried it was preferable and the hope was that a priest's blessings would sanctify this sinful union. Marriage as we know it with vows exchanged in front of a priest rather than the Bride's father, only became traditional in the middle ages and only became equal to Baptism in the late 12th century.
Phoebus begs Daphne to yield saying he will not be rough giving examples of her flight bringing herself harm. Which is how many a young girl at a young age still feels till she wants the attention of a male - at this time in history "And though fire and water fight each other, heat and moisture create everything, and this discordant union is suitable for growth." Daphne was probably all of maybe 14 years old if that... and expected to think of herself as a pure virgin - we know that boys mature sexually early with their peak during their late teens so that with no understanding of how sexuality is within us it would be easy to imagine a god being in charge and this time it is the arrow of a cupid.
If we are being poetic about ourselves - out of the blue we can feel a sexual attraction just as if we too were hit by cupid's arrow. We actually hope that a boy will become obsessed with his desire so that the union instead of being forced is a love match - we hope he will be "urged on by Amor, he ran on at full speed."
As to, "he driven by desire, she by fear." Has been the example of the coupling after marriage even in the early part of the twentieth century - a 'good' wife was innocent and fearful while the boy of maybe the same age or a year or so older was a 'man' that some had fathers who initiated them by bringing them to say it delicately as many did 'the local house of ill repute'
Today our fear seems to be centered around if the marriage will last and is he all that he appears - we have little to fear that we are being forced or complying with family demands to marry a certain man. But we can still use the balance between desire and fear as a story within - when we are smitten by the arrow are we acting responsibly or not - this is not the balance we experience later in a marriage but when we are first smitten it is what we hope young people consider so that the safety of water can douse out the fire.
In this story the safety of water can be thought of in several ways - there would be no escaping for a young women courted for marriage - the father would chose someone - and so her emotional flight, "Peneus’s waters near cried out ‘Help me father! If your streams have divine powers change me, destroy this beauty that pleases too well!’ Her prayer was scarcely done when a heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breast, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy." suggests to me two things.
It could suggest she no longer is her own agency - she is now the property of another and as if an appendage to the man, as if a tree growing from the mud - therefore, the second, as a symbol of a tree planted firm in these new waters of matrimony, like a tree she will grow and shelter their impregnated seeds. Which would satisfy the proclamation in the early part of the poem that said, "And though fire and water fight each other, heat and moisture create everything, and this discordant union is suitable for growth."
I see all of us made of water and with the ability to open our arms like a tree as well as, out of the blue being smitten by desire for not only another human but, for all sorts of creativity that is nurtured as if we were Daphne no longer fleeing but stuck fast protecting the fire and water, the union of a new triumph.
Yes, I never realized till I wrote all this that I can see the glory in this myth - the dart of a cupid urges an interest into a passion that brings something glorious to our lives.
Ha ha just read the posts y'all posted while I was writing this and digging deep to figure out what it meant to me. I guess I did have my metamorphose.
