her. But never did there come to
Daphne a time when she loved Love for Love's sake. Never did she look
with gentle eye on the golden-haired god whose face was as the face of
all the exquisite things that the sunlight shows, remembered in a
dream. Her only passion was a passion for the chase. One of Diana's
nymphs was she, cold and pure and white in soul as the virgin goddess
herself.

There came a day when Apollo could no longer put curbing hands on his
fierce longing. The flames from his chariot still lingered in
reflected glories on sea and hill and sky. The very leaves of the
budding trees of spring were outlined in gold. And through the dim
wood walked Daphne, erect and lithe and living as a sapling in the
early spring.

With beseeching hands, Apollo followed her. A god was he, yet to him
had come the vast humility of passionate intercession for the gift of
love to a little nymph. She heard his steps behind her and turned
round, proud and angry that one should follow her when she had not
willed it.

"Stay!" he said, "daughter of Peneus. No foe am I, but thine own
humble lover. To thee alone do I bow my head. To all others on earth
am I conqueror and king."

But Daphne, hating his words of passionate love, sped on. And when his
passion lent wings to his feet and she heard him gaining on her as she
fled, not as a lover did Daphne look on deathless Apollo, but as a
hateful foe. More swiftly than she had ever run beside her mistress
Diana, leaving the flying winds behind her as she sped, ran Daphne
now. But ever did Apollo gain upon her, and almost had he grasped her
when she reached the green banks of the river of which her father,
Peneus, was god.

"Help me, Peneus!" she cried. "Save me, oh my father, from him whose
love I fear!"

As she spoke the arms of Apollo seized her, yet, even as his arms met
around her waist, lissome and slight as a young willow, Daphne the
nymph was Daphne the nymph no longer. Her fragrant hair, her soft
white arms, her tender body all changed as the sun-god touched them.
Her feet took root in the soft, damp earth by the river. Her arms
sprouted into woody branches and green leaves. Her face vanished, and
the bark of a big tree enclosed her snow-white body. Yet Apollo did
not take away his embrace from her who had been his dear first love.
He knew that her cry to Peneus her father had been answered, yet he
said, "Since thou canst not be my bride, at least thou shalt be my
tree; my