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Daphne (Mythology)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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DAPHNE (Gr. for a laurel tree), in Greek mythology, the daughter of the Arcadian river-god Ladon or the Thessalian Peneus, or of the Laconian Amyclas. She was beloved by Apollo, and when pursued by him was changed by her mother Gaea into a laurel tree sacred to the god (Ovid, Metam. i. 452-567). In the Peloponnesian legends, another suitor of Daphne, Leucippus, son of Oenomaiis of Pisa, disguised himself as a girl and joined her companions. His sex was discovered while bathing, and he was slain by the nymphs (Pausanias viii. 20; Parthenius, Erotica, 15).