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Honors 210 B Final Essay
Honors 210 B Final Essay
Honors 210 B
Professor Hinds
The tale of Daphne and Apollo is remarkable for its portrayal of a scene that may be all
to familiar to the modern reader: a man loves a woman and pursues her, seemingly oblivious to
her repeated pleas for him to leave her alone. The main distinction here is that the man in
question is the god Apollo, and that in the end Daphne transforms into the laurel tree.
Odysseus also shares with Daphne the experience of being the victim of a deity’s unrequited
romantic interests. He is kept captive by the goddess Calypso, although he is eventually taken
pity on by Athena and Zeus and allowed to return to his journey. Both tales speak to the larger
classical theme of sexual exchanges between humans and gods. The interactions between
amorous gods and disinterested humans play out along gender lines, as exhibited by the
Both Daphne and Odysseus are saved from their divine pursuers by other gods, but their
relationship to these holy saviors are different. Daphne is saved from her fate by the river god
Peneus, who happens to be her father. He wants her to bring him grandchildren, which is
directly against her wish to remain a virgin: “ Her father would say, ‘you owe me a son-in-law,
girl.’/Or he’d say, ‘Child, you owe me some grandchildren.’/As horrified by marriage as by some
crime,/ she’d blush, embarrassed, her pretty face bright,/ throw winning arms around his neck
and cry,/ ‘Dear adorable father, please let me stay a virgin girl always.’” (Ovid, Daphne L. 481-
487) Here her status as a virgin is entirely dependent on the wishes of her father, as he has the
power to marry her off against her will if he so chooses. He does hear her pleas for help but
does not deliver her from being accosted in the same form. True to the theme of
Metamorphosis, she is transformed into a tree. She couldn’t give him what he wants, and
although he did help her, she will not be entirely free either. Odysseus, on the other hand, is
saved by the goddess Athena, who has seemingly taken a liking to him without any
qualifications or family connection. She persuades Zeus to make Calypso let Odysseus go, but
not without an ironic rant about the sexist double-standard regulating god-human sexual
interactions. She lets him go, and unlike Daphne he is free and without reservation: “But first
she bathed him, gave him a scented cloak, / and put on board a skin of dusky wine/ with water
in a bigger skin, and stores–/ boiled meats and other victuals– in a bag.” (Homer, Odyssey L.
273-276) Here, Calypso lets Odysseus go without any change in his form or prerequisites for her
assistance. Instead, she lets him go without pain or suffering and allows him to retain his self-
determination. The difference between these two tales is rooted in the dynamic of power
between men and women. Self-control and self-determination are given to the male
protagonist, Odysseus, after he is freed by the god, but not to the female protagonist, Daphne.
This is due to the male ability to move throughout the world unconstrained by the same social
regulation put on women, which allows them to control not only themselves but the women in
their lives, as Peneus does with both Daphne’s virginity and her physical form.
Both Daphne and Odysseus are powerless to change their own fate, although their level
of distress about becoming the sexual property of these gods varies by gender. Daphne is
caught in a horrifying race against a supernatural being from whom she can’t seem to flee.
Regardless of how fast she runs, she cannot escape Apollo: “But the one spurred by Love is
faster and will not/ let her catch her breath, touches her back as she flees, / and breathes on
the hair flying loose at her neck.” (Ovid, Daphne L. 540-542) Daphne is clearly experiencing
utter terror in this moment. Her only desire in life is to live like her hero, the virgin goddess
Diana. Here it is clear that she would rather lose her human form, if not her life, than
experience that which most horrifies her. Odysseus indeed wants to leave Calypso’s island and
return home to his wife Penelope, and clearly is not staying due to his own choice. In the
meanwhile, however, he does not mind sleeping with the goddess until she lets him go: “Now
as he spoke the sun set, dusk drew on, / and they retired, this pair, to the inner cave/ to revel
and rest softly, side by side.” (Homer, Odyssey L. 234-236) This scene could almost be seen as
cozy were the reader unaware of the relationship dynamic between the two. Of course,
Odysseus would like to go home in the end, but will sleep with Calypso without qualms about
how his wife Penelope would feel were she to find out about his adulterous behavior. The
difference here illustrates what each gender has to lose from sexual exploitation. Men have had
less to fear over the millennia from abduction and sexual trauma, although fear would certainly
have been a rational emotion for them as well. Women like Daphne, however, have been
degraded for thousands of years. What is more, defilement meant not only physical and
emotional trauma, but also diminished marriage prospects due to their non-virgin status. These
two poems, albeit fictional, serve to demonstrate a very real and very modern disparity in
sexual freedom.
The end results of these two stories are different in the level of freedom retained by
each human character, representative of their gender. Daphne not only changes her form, but
also loses her autonomy. Her father may have saved her from sexual defilement by turning her
into the laurel tree, but this begs the question: if Daphne can no longer experience life, is she
truly saved? Although she does remain a virgin as she wished, there is now nothing to stop
Apollo from claiming her as his sacred tree: “The healer was done. The laurel made a sign/ with
her branches, seemed to shake her leafy crown.” (Ovid, Daphne L. 566-567) Here Daphne, now
the laurel, is expressing her distress but finds herself absolutely powerless to stop Apollo from
taking ownership of her form for his own purposes, yet again. Odysseus, however, is free to
leave and go about his journey. Calypso does not want him to go but won’t make him stay
either. She even helps him leave and sets him on his way with a helpful gust of wind: “Then she
conjured a warm landbreeze to blowing– joy for Odysseus when he shook out sail!” (Homer,
Odyssey L. 277-278) Odysseus is still just as able to build a ship, navigate the world and
determine his own future as he was before Calypso took him prisoner: “Come and cut down
high timber for a raft/ or flatboat; make her broad-beamed, and decked over so you can ride
her on the misty sea.” (Homer, Odyssey L. 171-174) He can move freely, build his craft and
make his own decisions about where to travel. Granted, the gods do interfere with his journey,
but he never has to compromise on his autonomy. The difference here can be seen as an
Although both Apollo and Calypso initially act against their human lovers’ desires, their
actions differ when it comes to honoring the wishes of their unwilling paramours. Apollo never
really seems to notice or care what Daphne wants, despite his professed love for her. This is
illustrated by his seemingly confused calls for her to be careful: “The places you’re running are
rough. Run more slowly, / please, don’t flee so fast; I’ll chase more slowly, too.” (Ovid, Daphne
L. 510-511) If Apollo truly wanted Daphne to be secure, he wouldn’t be chasing her in the first
place. This proves, however, that he only wants her to be secure for him, not for herself, and
that her wish to escape him doesn’t even register with him as valid or existent. Conversely,
Calypso eventually gives in and lets Odysseus go, albeit not without asking him why his wishes
differ so starkly from hers: “Son of Laërtês, versatile Odysseus, / after all these years with me,
you still desire/ your old home? Even so, I wish you well.” (Homer, Odyssey L. 212-214) She
doesn’t like his desire to return home, but she accepts that what he wants is different from
what she wants, and Odysseus will leave a free man, even as Calypso lets him go only
begrudgingly. The difference here is between the authority given to male and female agency.
Men are permitted to have desires and pursue them, while women are relegated to be acted
In modern times, women are still restricted in the level of autonomy they are able to
exercise. To simplify a complex issue, women are given two options: they can be mothers, or
they can choose to forgo their societally predetermined role. As a mother, women are expected
to sacrifice their own desires for those of their children and be totally submissive to the needs
and wants of their husbands. Women without children, on the other hand, are often seen as
cold, aggressive and sometimes even mean, the inverse of the maternal stereotype. In fact, by
not meeting the societal standard of motherhood, these women are often confusing to those
who do not question their own preconceived ideas of what it means to be a woman. When
women try to be both a mother and a career woman, for example, society struggles to
understand them. Both Daphne and Calypso can be seen through this lens. Daphne wants only
to be a virgin, clearly preventing her from aspiring to motherhood, and Calypso lashes out
against Zeus for limiting her actions where he wouldn’t limit a male god. Indeed, it is distressing
that society has changed so little over so many thousands of years, and yet somehow it is not at
all shocking.
In ancient Greece, as in modern society, men and women are relegated to different
realms. Men are encouraged to navigate the larger world, while to some degree women are still
expected to stay at home and raise a family in the private sphere. In more modern times
women often find themselves entrapped in the dual expectations of working life and
motherhood, and more often than not find themselves making massive sacrifices in their
working lives to become mothers. For those women who eschew motherhood entirely there
exists a degree of judgment as to why they do not fulfill the duty of motherhood proscribed to
them by millennia of human society. Daphne, who deviates from the societal expectation of
motherhood and marriage, is restricted in her motion and prevented from living in the manner
of her choice. Odysseus, who lives up to the male stereotype of the brave, smart explorer, is
not restrained and instead is able to travel freely throughout the Mediterranean, exploring,
adventuring and experiencing all the trials and triumphs that the gods threw his way. Though
Daphne and Odysseus share unwanted sexual harassment by gods, that is all they have in
common. It is worth reexamining ancient poetry for what it can show modern man, both about
what has changed and what has remained regrettably the same.